Kimani Mwaniki, an Irish potato farmer in Elburgon, Kenya tends to his crop after preparing land using a chisel plough and tractor that he acquired using AMS. Credit: Justus Wanzala / IPS

By Justus Wanzala
Nakuru, Kenya, Aug 13 2021 (IPS)

When 33-year-old Kimani Mwaniki, an Irish potato farmer in Elburgon, Nakuru County in Kenya’s Rift Valley, heard about a farmer’s virtual school, he didn’t hesitate to enrol. He was keen to learn how the programme will enable him to get higher crop yields for his market in the capital city Nairobi and elsewhere.

For years, the young farmer had been relying on the occasional visit of an agricultural extension officer for information about best practices on his five-acre land, but not anymore.

Now, armed with a smartphone, Mwaniki can connect with experts and farmers like him across the county for information about the right seeds, when to plant them and how to tend to his crops. It also tells him about the right machinery, where to find it and how to use it.

He says through the virtual school, he has been able to find the right machinery to prepare his land at a low cost.

The virtual school programme is supported by Nakuru Agri Call, an intervention of the County Government of Nakuru. It seeks to empower some 3,000 smallholder farmers in the area with information about competitive farming practices, including mechanisation, appropriate land preparation, seed sourcing, crop care and post-harvest management.

Just by logging in to Facebook and Twitter on the Nakuru Agri Call page, farmers get tips about soil analysis, collecting soil samples for analysis, and sending their samples for analysis. Users can also find farming tips on the school’s WhatsApp page.

The program’s focus is on mechanisation. Officials say it is set to spur smallholder farmers like Kimani to engage in agribusiness and improve their livelihoods while shoring up rural economies dependent on agriculture.

In the effort to reduce the usually high cost of production, every planting season, Irish potato farmers can use the platform to request government-owned equipment for preparing their land at a nominal fee.

Kimani is among the farmers who have requested a tractor and a chisel plough through the virtual school to prepare his land to grow Irish potatoes.

He says with the help of the school, he has learnt that the plough is better than the traditional disc plough that he and other farmers in his neighbourhood have been using for many years.

The chisel plough, he says, makes the recommended raised seedbeds without damaging the soil structure like the conventional hoe and the disc plough, which turn the fragile soil in a manner that leads to rapid moisture loss and erosion during heavy rains leading to reduced productivity of the soil.

He says a chisel plough is an efficient tool for eliminating weeds, thus helpful to farmers looking to minimise labour and time on crop production from planting to maturity.

Mwaniki says with just Kenya Shillings (Ksh.2, 800), around USD 28, a farmer can request a tractor and the plough to prepare an acre compared to the Ksh 5,000 (around USD 50) used to hire a disc plough and a tractor for an acre. He hopes to increase his yield from the current 50 to 60 bags an acre.

He commends the Nakuru County government’s Agriculture Mechanization Service (AMS) for easing the burden on farmers, saying with reduced costs of production, smallholder farmers can expand their margins of profit, create wealth and jobs.

The program has also enabled smallholder farmer’s access hay, wheat harvesting equipment and maise shelling machines to minimise post-harvest losses, which farmers say eat into their returns.

The Agricultural Mechanization Service Manager, Stephen Waithaka, says the scheme encourages the adoption of technology and mechanised farming among smallholder farmers to improve production and quality of their produce.
He says besides providing mechanisation services to smallholder farmers, the program aims to train farmers on the right choices of agricultural equipment and how to use them for better yield.

Waithaka says the County Government has bought equipment valued at KShs 25 million (USD 250 000) for distribution to small-scale farmer groups in the first phase of the Agriculture Mechanization Services project.

At a time when concerns about soil conservation are mounting, Waithaka is advising farmers to use the service for appropriate ploughing practices that protect the integrity of their soil.

He observes that with increased mechanisation, more youth are anticipated to practice agriculture and create jobs while ensuring the country’s food and nutrition security agenda.

However, he says the equipment available is not adequate with the rising uptake of machinery among farmers. He says more equipment will enable the service to expand its coverage and enable more smallholder farmers to improve their yield and livelihoods by mechanisation.

Mwaniki, like other smallholder farmers, is hoping to leverage the programme for better livelihoods. He hopes that the programme, through public-private partnerships, will expand the internet coverage in agriculturally productive areas to enable more farmers to tap into it.

The role of digitisation in enhancing mechanisation is earning accolades from various stakeholders in Kenya’s agriculture sector. According to Harriet Tergat, Digitization and Communications Lead, Farm to Market Alliance in Kenya (FtMA-Kenya), an alliance of Kenyan agri-focused organisations that supports mechanisation through digitisation, the technology is transforming agriculture. She says it has brought efficiency, decreased production and operations costs, optimisation, and transparency.

“The technology can be replicated elsewhere in Africa in boosting the agricultural sector, given the continent’s very young population, fast spread of ICTs due to improved infrastructure such as high ownership smartphones and internet connectivity. Digitisation is an enabler, not an end of its own,” she says.

Harriet adds that through digitisation, transformation in the agricultural sector has brought about increased access to mechanisation services, which has brought about an increase in productivity and a decrease in production costs.

Harriet explains that the Farm to Market Alliance works with partners using a mobile phone application to connect tractor owners to smallholder farmers in need of tractor services. “Hello Tractor is like the Uber for tractors. Through this partnership, necessary mechanisation services have been availed to 11,327 smallholder farmers and 3,800 acres serviced,” she observes.

In addition to the benefits digitisation brings to smallholder farmers, notes Harriet, it also opens up new opportunities for self-employment for the youth who work as Hello Tractor agents and earn commissions for every transaction they facilitate through the application.

Indeed, a study by Food Sustainability Index, global research on nutrition, sustainable agriculture, and food waste, developed by the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation (BCFN) and the Economist Intelligence Unit, indicates that digitisation is a boon to agriculture in Africa. According to the study, emerging digital tools contributes to efficiency and sustainability of better farm yields.

Dubbed ‘Fixing Food 2018: Best Practices towards the Sustainable Development Goals, the study analysed social, economic and environmental aspects of food sustainability. It looked at the nexus between the key challenges like access to food, healthy and sustainable diets, and responsible food production and distribution.

The study collected data from 67 countries worldwide to highlight best practices and areas for improvement concerning food and the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Rwanda ranks high in the use of sustainable practices like agricultural water because it utilises renewable sources.

Other than Rwanda and Kenya, the report states technology is contributing to sustainable agriculture in countries like Mozambique and Tanzania, for instance, via the Connected Farmer Alliance—a TechnoServe which is using mobile technology to connect farmers to multinational agribusinesses and facilitate payments, thus improving productivity, incomes, and resilience of small-scale farmers.

Still, in the case of Kenya, the level of uptake is set to grow fast. In February this year, at the launch of the five mechanisation hubs in Nakuru County, the County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, Immaculate Maina, said through the program the County Government had supported five registered farmer groups to the tune of Kshs 20 million (USD 200 000).

For Mwaniki, planting season was often a headache. He was often caught alongside other farmers in a mad rush for equipment as they prepared their land for sowing, but this is no longer the case.

Demand for harrows, planters and other farm machinery was high, meaning that farmers had to wait longer, slowing down planting in time for the rains.

“When every person wanted to have their farm planted, it became hectic since we had to wait for days to get access to a plough and other farm machinery. The costs of hiring the machinery were also prohibitive,” he says.

With the future of farming resting with the emerging small-scale and middle-class farmers, he says there is an urgent need to empower this group to ensure food security.

Mwaniki indicates that since he enrolled in the AMS program last year, his potato yields per acre had increased by over 50 percent. In contrast, costs of tilling and weeding through the use of modern machinery had dropped significantly.

“The equipment makes it possible for me to undertake more than one activity in the farm, thus saving the long-term costs and improving productivity,” he observes.

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Members of a women-farmers’ collective demonstrate use of a devices that sends daily bulletins on weather patterns, crops and other matters of importance to farming communities in rural India. Inexpensive technology can have a life-changing impact on rural women. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19 2020 (IPS)

Access to technology which is relatively inexpensive to deploy can have a life-changing impact for rural women, social scientist Valentina Rotondi told IPS.

Rotondi shared her insight during a presentation of her research titled “Digital rural gender divide in Latin America and the Caribbean” to mark International Day of Rural Women on Thursday, Oct. 15.

At the presentation, Rotondi said her team studied the impact of the digital gender gap and access to technology on women’s health. Their research focused specifically on access to reproductive and sexual health for women in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Access to mobile phones can be a vehicle for improving health and reproductive health for women living in those remote areas,” Rotondi told IPS. “Women living in remote areas can get access to information regarding their pregnancy or their health. As a result, getting access to this information and reducing their travel time to hospital, improves the health status of their babies.”

The research was carried out by the University of Oxford, and the webinar was co-organised by  the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Inter-American Development Bank  and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Manuel Otero, Director General of IICA, said in his opening remarks that the observation of International Day of Rural Women was to celebrate the far-reaching “direct implications” and “deep roots” that rural women hold in the lives of those around them. 

“Women in rural territories deserve and need to be applauded, because they are the ones that guarantee rootedness, and are also at the core of family and productive life,” he said.

Otero added that rural women played a key role in ensuring food security and, ultimately, the whole purpose of agricultural development and rural wellbeing.

And yet, often they remain invisible in larger society.

Calling them the “guardians of our rural territories”, Otero said that last week’s celebrations were a part of the framework to gain recognition for such a vital section of society.

“We want to encourage public discussion which is necessary in order to push for development and implementation of high quality policies that would, once and for all, improve the situation for the women who live out in the countryside,” he said. 

At the talk, Rotondi added that while it is very low-cost to implement the kind of technological access that provides women with information about reproductive health, their impacts can be life-changing.

“The impact of those kinds of technology, which are really cheap and [help] connect [the women] to others, are big enough and could really be a vehicle for sustainable development,” she said. 

According to their research, narrowing gender gaps in mobile phone adoption can further narrow gender gaps in internet access, which might be “pivotal” in terms of health of improvement.

Rotondi further cited research that found  access to mobile phones can improve women’s financial resilience , which in turn improves their outcomes.

She shared the findings of their study that support this analysis:

• Women living in rural areas are the least “connected” group.
• The digital gender divide, which hampers women’s ability to access information and communication technologies, was narrowing in Latin America and the Caribbean  until a few years ago
• In 17 of the 23 countries analysed, women are less likely than men to report owning a mobile phone
• Countries that report a narrow digital gender gap also have lower gender gaps in vulnerable employment, youth unemployment and labor-force participation

The digital divide between men and women has been further impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“In this pandemic situation, whereby schools are closed, people who have access to mobile phones and the Internet might be able to continue education, but those without this technology cannot,” Rotondi added.

Otero of IICA added that the current pandemic has made it more challenging  for the rural women who are even less connected, highlighting the invisibility of rural women and their work.

“It’s not enough to talk about access to land ownership, productive resources, finances, education, training, health, and justice” he said. “In particular, we [must] focus on the issue of connectivity. The pandemic has shown us that [having a] cell phone opens up almost every type of possibility, the ability to study, to sell or to buy – and therefore to work.”

Data by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), shows that only 35 percent of students studying STEM in higher education globally are women. At primary and lower secondary levels, less than half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have no electricity, computers or even access to the internet. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
DJIBOUTI CITY, Jan 28 2020 (IPS)

Dr. Anne-Maria Brennan loved science as a young girl. But instead of encouraging her, those around her made attempts to steer her in the “right direction”. “The right direction was in nursing, teaching and secretarial courses. I was told that girls do not study physics,” she tells IPS.

“These voices were so loud that I seriously considered becoming a music teacher. But then someone sensibly told me that I could become a scientist and an amateur musician, but there was nothing like an amateur scientist who was also a professional musician,” she says.

That was in the seventies, today Brennan is the vice-president of Science Engagement at the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation in the United Kingdom.

Brennan previously served as an associate professor in Bioscience and Forensic Biology, at the School of Applied Science, London South Bank University.

“It turns out that girls could in fact study physics, or mathematics, science, technology and engineering,” she quips.

It has been five decades since Brennan swam against the tide, pursuing a career in science. But data by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), shows that globally only 35 percent of students studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – or STEM – in higher education are women. Further confirming that girls are still being steered towards domestic and caring career paths.

“Gender balance in enrolment as well as inclusivity in both participation and achievements in STEM education remains a global south challenge,” Professor Kalu Mosto Onuoha, President of the Nigerian Academy of Science, tells IPS.

“Education systems will never be balanced and inclusive when half of the population is not participating at per with their counterparts in STEM education,” he adds.

Similar sentiments were shared by other delegates participating in the 3rd International Summit on Balanced and Inclusive Education currently being held in Djibouti City, Djibouti. Organised by the Education Relief Foundation (ERF), over 200 delegates and government representatives from over 35 countries are currently in the Horn of Africa nation where state leaders are expected to sign a Universal Declaration on universal inclusive education.

• Unfortunately, low female representation in STEM education is a narrative that knows no boundaries. According to UNESCO, Sweden has the highest share of women graduates from STEM programmes among Nordic countries, but STEM attainment among female students in Sweden stands at 16 percent, compared to male students at 47 percent.

Brennan affirms that the numbers are similarly low in the United Kingdom but notes some improvements in the fields of general practice and dentistry, where women have taken a lead.

She says there are few women in surgery and even fewer in engineering because men in these fields are considered unfriendly and the sectors too involved and dirty.

“These wide gender gaps in developing countries are purely out of choice. Students in these countries are making the choice to pursue other interests. In developing countries the choice is made for our students by a patriarchal culture and through socialisation,” says Onuoha.

He says that these inequalities are first rooted in the exclusion and marginalisation of girls in education enrolment.

“Girls who eventually made it to school were encouraged to undertake feminine subjects like teaching. They were socialised to believe that they could only be good mothers if they took on lighter subjects,” Onuoha expounds.

• But the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 indicates that these inequalities are not limited to the lagging behind of girls at the enrolment level.
• In countries such as the Southern Africa nation of Namibia where girls outpace boys in school enrolment at all levels, the gap widens in STEM education. Here, about eight percent of female students have attained STEM education, compared to 21 percent of male students.
• Nonetheless, the report shines a spotlight on countries with impressive levels of STEM education uptake among their female students.
• In Mauritania, for instance, attainment in STEM is at 29 percent among female students, and 31 percent among male students. In the South Asian nation of Myanmar, female students outpace male students in attainment of STEM education.
• A few other countries such as the Arab country of Oman are slowly and surely closing the gender gap in STEM uptake, with 41 percent of female students and 55 percent of male students.

“In developing countries there are many concerted efforts to address the first part of  the problem, even though painfully slowly, we are slowly closing gender gaps in education enrolment, retention and in some cases, achievements,” Professor Mahouton Norbert Hounkonnou, from the Benin National Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, tells IPS.

Hounkonnou is a full professor of mathematics and physics, and called for the demystification of sciences. “STEM education is taught as if only a few people are meant to understand but science and math is for all of us. Everybody does math on a daily basis without even knowing it.”

Hounkonnou says that balanced and inclusive education systems call for an overhaul in what is taught in STEMs, who teaches it and how it is taught. “Learners love to be engaged. Our classrooms must become more interactive. We also need a gender component, currently lacking, in many of our educational interventions,” he adds.

He called for investment in infrastructure and learning materials to improve the environment in which STEM education is provided.

U.N. research shows that countries in the sub-Sahara Africa face the biggest challenges. At the primary and lower secondary levels, less than half of schools have access to electricity, computers and internet.

“This forum provides an opportunity for us to define the shape a balanced and inclusive STEM education system should take, and make concerted efforts to build that system. It will take financial and technical resources, including the training of teachers to better interact with female learners,” says Hounkonnou.

Maths and physical science teacher Peter Tabichi (far right) in class. The Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School teacher has been nominated for the one million dollar Global Teacher Prize. Courtesy: Peter Tabichi

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Mar 20 2019 (IPS)

Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Nakuru County, situated in a remote, semi-arid part of Kenya’s Rift Valley, could pass for an ordinary secondary school in any part of Africa. But ordinary it is not.

Maths and physical science teacher Peter Tabichi’s love for science is changing the lives of Keriko’s 480 students for the better.

In a region frequently blighted by drought and famine, Tabichi’s students come from poor families–almost a third are orphans or have only one parent–with many going without food at home. The students have mixed experiences from drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, early school dropout, young marriages and there have been cases of suicide.

Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School reflects the challenges of education access in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa; lack of teaching and learning resources, high student to teacher ratios, high drop-out rates and teacher demotivation.

According to the United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO), of all regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion, with over one-fifth of children between the ages of about 6 and 11 not attending school.

Further, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) data states that almost 60 percent of youth between the ages of about 15 and 17 are not in school. The organisation warns that without urgent action, the situation will likely get worse as the region faces a rising demand for education due to a still-growing school-age population.

Filling the education gap with science

Tabichi, a member of the Franciscan Brotherhood, donates 80 percent of his monthly income to help his students in need.

But it is his dedication and passionate belief in his students’ talent, that has embolden the poorly-resourced learners to take on Kenya’s best schools in national science competitions.

Through his mentorship, Tabichi’s students participated in the 2018 Kenya Science and Engineering Fair where they displayed an invention that allows blind and deaf people to measure objects.

Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School came first nationally in the public schools category competition organised by the science fair. The maths and science team qualified to participate at the INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair in 2019.

Using the school’s only computer, and despite the poor internet connection and a student-teacher ratio of 58:1, Tabichi has impacted his student’s impoverished lives. He started a Talent Nurturing Club and expanded the school’s Science Club, helping pupils design research projects that are of such a high standard that 60 percent of them now qualify for national competitions.

“My four colleagues and I also give low-achieving pupils one-to-one tuition in Maths and Science outside class and on the weekends, where I visit students’ homes and meet their families to identify the challenges they face,” Tabichi told. “I use ICT in 80 percent of my lessons to engage students, visit internet cafes and cache online content to be used offline in class.”

In February 2019, Tabichi was named one of the top 10 finalists for the Varkey Foundation’s Global Teacher Prize 2019. The one million dollar award recognises an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession and highlights the important role of teachers.  Tabichi and nine other finalists were selected from over 10,000 nominations and applications from 179 countries around the world.

The Global Teacher Prize was established five years ago and aims to recognise the exceptional work of teachers all over the world.

Tabichi is excited about his nomination for the prestigious award, describing it as a God-given honour.

“I did not anticipate it,” Tabichi, told IPS. “But I feel that I deserve it since I have transformed the lives of many students. Also, the nomination makes me view all the hard-working teachers throughout the world as superheroes that the world needs to give recognition for bringing a positive change to society.”

Turning challenges into opportunities

Raised in a family of teachers, Tabichi said he recognises the great contribution teachers bring to their communities through their dedication and passion. He added that he was inspired by his father to perceive a teacher’s role as that of enlightening others on how to tackle the challenges of life.

On what can be done to make education, especially at early and primary level accessible to all, Tabichi believes that making it free, equitable and raising the quality of education is a start.

Asked what he will do with the Global Teacher Prize, should he win?

“The main focus will be on the community and school. For example, I would strengthen the Talent Nurturing Club, the Science Club and inter-school science project competitions,” said Tabichi. He added, “I would also invest in a school computer lab with better internet connectivity. In the community, I would promote kitchen gardening and production of drought tolerant crops.”

Congratulating Tabichi for his nomination, Founder of the Varkey Foundation and the Global Teacher Prize, Sunny Varkey hoped Tabichi’s story would inspire those looking to enter the teaching profession.

“The thousands of nominations and applications we received from every corner of the planet is testimony to the achievements of teachers and the enormous impact they have on all of our lives.”

The hi-tech radio room that works with Google Earth maps at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in northern Kenya where some of the 1,000 rangers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) trained in GPS use lead anti-poaching surveillance. Photo takes May 2016. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
NEW DELHI, Sep 19 2016 (IPS)

Every November, India’s Gahirmatha beach in the Indian Ocean region develops a brownish-grey rash for 60 to 80 days. Half-a-million female Olive Ridley turtles emerge out of the waves to lay their eggs, over a hundred each. For the sheer numbers, this arrival is hard to miss.

However, knowledge about this IUCN’s endangered species’ exact migration route across oceans has remained fragmentary for conservationists seeking to protect its globally declining population owing to destruction of habitat, global warming and trawl fishing.Migrating songbirds, beetles and dragonflies can soon be hooked up to space satellites helping to predict natural disasters and the spread of zoonoses - diseases that jump from animals to humans like swine flu and avian influenza.

As pressures from climate change, ecosystem loss and wild life crime threaten biodiversity and wildlife around the globe, scientists are responding by harnessing the power of sophisticated space technologies.

Migrating songbirds, beetles and dragonflies can soon be hooked up to space satellites helping to predict natural disasters and the spread of zoonoses – diseases that jump from animals to humans like swine flu and avian influenza. Radars will help locate poachers through infrared, detect through an elephant’s agitated movements, its imminent poaching. Cameras orbiting in space can capture the presence of crop diseases and invasive species in remote locations. The realm of science fiction has already stepped into the real world.

The International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) project, whose trial phase starts in 2017, is developing solar-powered sensors weighing 1 to 5 grammes which can be attached to migratory songbirds, even dragonflies, beetles. The transmitted data will inform not simply the geo-positions and movements but provide important clues about the body functions or senses of the animal, giving significant indicators about impending natural disasters.

By 2020, ICARUS sensors could be small enough to fit into locusts, possibly even to use the micro-sensors to control the locust flight path to divert the swarm from valuable crops, say its researchers at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.

Scientists working on ICARUS say battery life is a major limiting factor for tracking small animals since the miniature batteries they can carry do not last long.

However, Russian space agency Roscosmos’s International Space Station, on which ICARUS hardware will be installed, is closer to the Earth than satellites, thus decreasing the amount of power required to upload data. Saving more battery life, the Station will wake the bird-mounted mini transmitter from its energy-saving mode only when it has visual contact to the in-flight bird. It’ll take only a few seconds to transmit all data back to the Station.

The urgency to go beyond manual patrolling to advanced space-based technology to combat poaching and illegal wildlife trade comes strongly from the World Wildlife Crime Report 2016.

The report builds on the data platform World WISE (The World Wildlife Seizures) that contains over 164,000 seizures related to wildlife crime involving 7,000 species from 120 countries spanning 2004 to 2015.

Trafficking of wildlife is now recognised as a specialised area of organised crime and a significant threat to many plant and animal species. The focus of the upcoming 17th Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is set to be the illegal wildlife trade. According to a 2016 UN Environment Programme report, the wildlife trade is estimated at 7 to 23 billion dollars annually.

With poachers increasingly using more sophisticated technology, wildlife rangers need to be equipped too. When a poacher moves in for the kill, elephants and rhinos will often behave unusually. Animal sensors help detect such behavior and send alerts to law enforcement, giving them time to act.

Other high-resolution constellations (10 or more) of radar satellites, unlike optical Earth observation satellites, are powerful enough to penetrate dense forest canopies, clouds and cover of darkness that aid poachers from detection. Infrared sensors attached to drones controlled by Global Positioning Systems (GPS) can also be used to detect campfires or warm bodies hiding in African bush land, say researchers.

Sophisticated satellites are already monitoring the extent of illegal logging, rate of deforestation and even soil moisture. The launch of hyperspectral imaging satellites that record detailed images in hundreds of electromagnetic wavelengths can assess the extent of disaster, crop growth and diseases, availability of water in remote locations and glacier melts, besides general biodiversity.

Development experts say the role that space tools can play for achieving the SDGs is broad and diverse, specifically Goal 15 to protect, restore and promote sustainable management of ecosystems, forests, soil and biodiversity, monitor not just wildlife but assess whether management practices put in place are having the desired effect.

“There are many types of satellites flying in space,” said Werner Balogh, a programme officer at the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). “But how are they being used, is there more that can be done? Can we find joint mechanisms to share this data? It’s an exciting field and there’s still lots that needs to be explored.”

There has emerged consistent demand from developing countries who host rich biodiversity that mutual partnerships, free technical assistance, knowledge transfer, adequate resources and capacity building in space-based technologies to developing countries will significantly help achieve the 2030 Agenda.

But the high cost of technology solutions and access to the latest science and knowledge remain major constraints for the global South.

“In India, we use radio-collars to track movement for large animals like tigers and elephants. However, permits costs and taxes add to the already high cost of obtaining wildlife collars; for example, satellite collars to be used on elephants are available for 2,500 dollars each, plus annual subscription costs of 500 dollars,” Shashank Srinivasan, spatial analysis coordinator of World Wildlife Fund, India, told IPS.

The South Asia region, with 40 percent forest cover in Bhutan and Nepal and precious biodiversity, is very vulnerable to illegal traffic and wildlife crimes mainly because there exist easier traffic routes to large markets like China.

“The international community must design low-cost space-based appliances for sharing with developing countries like the solar transmitter chips (ICARUS) Germany is developing. It would be of great conservation value if we could procure it for 50 to 100 dollars,” Saroj Koirala, geospatial technologies expert with the World Wildlife Fund, Nepal, told IPS.

“Even if international commercial companies can provide us with, for example, hyperspectral images as old as of year 2010, this would still help country research. The process to access these are conditional and time-consuming,” Koirala added.

Srinivasan said except for initiatives like wildlabs.net that allow for the sharing of conservation-relevant technology, he knew of no other national, regional or international technology sharing or funding.

Experts say awareness of the importance of space-based technologies needs to be created among law makers for need-of-the-hour policies and fund allocation. Koirala said since nature conservation is linked to livelihoods, people themselves will pressurise democratic governments to set aside funds for latest technologies.

ADB president Takehiko Nakao speaks at the Food Security Forum in Manila. Credit: Diana G. Mendoza/IPS

By Diana G Mendoza
MANILA, Jun 25 2016 (IPS)

Farming and agriculture may not seem cool to young people, but if they can learn the thrill of nurturing plants to produce food, and are provided with their favorite apps and communications software on agriculture, food insecurity will not be an issue, food and agriculture experts said during the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s Food Security Forum from June 22 to 24 at the ADB headquarters here.

The prospect of attracting youth and tapping technology were raised by Hoonae Kim, director for Asia and the Pacific Region of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Nichola Dyer, program manager of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), two of many forum panelists who shared ideas on how to feed 3.74 billion people in the region while taking care of the environment.

“There are 700 million young people in Asia Pacific. If we empower them, give them voice and provide them access to credit, they can be interested in all areas related to agriculture,” Kim said. “Many young people today are educated and if they continue to be so, they will appreciate the future of food as that of safe, affordable and nutritious produce that, during growth and production, reduces if not eliminate harm to the environment.”

Dyer, citing the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate that 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year worldwide, said, “We have to look at scaling up the involvement of the private sector and civil societies to ensure that the policy gaps are given the best technologies that can be applied.”

Dyer also said using technology includes the attendant issues of gathering and using data related to agriculture policies of individual countries, especially those that have recognized the need to lessen harm to the environment while looking for ways to ensure that there is enough food for everyone.

“There is a strong need to support countries that promote climate-smart agriculture, both financially and technically as a way to introduce new technologies,” she said.

The Leaders Roundtable on the Future of Food was moderated by the DG IPS Farhana Haque Rahman. The President of ADB, Takehiko Nakao was a panellist along with Ministers of Food and Agriculture of Indonesia and Lao PDR, FAO regional ADG and CEO of Olam International. – Credit: ADB

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific estimated in 2014 that the region has 750 million young people aged 15 to 24, comprising 60 percent of the world’s youth. Large proportions live in socially and economically developed areas, with 78 percent of them achieving secondary education and 40 percent reaching tertiary education.

A regional paper prepared by the Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) in 2015, titled “A Viable Future: Attracting the Youth Back to Agriculture,” noted that many young people in Asia choose to migrate to seek better lives and are reluctant to go into farming, as they prefer the cities where life is more convenient.

“In the Philippines, most rural families want their children to pursue more gainful jobs in the cities or overseas, as farming is largely associated with poverty,” the paper stated.

Along with the recognition of the role of young people in agriculture, the forum also resonated with calls to look at the plight of farmers, who are mostly older in age, dwindling in numbers and with little hope of finding their replacement from among the younger generations, even from among their children. Farmers, especially those who do not own land but work only for landowners or are small-scale tillers, also remain one of the most marginalised sectors in every society.

Estrella Penunia, secretary-general of the AFA, said that while it is essential to rethink how to better produce, distribute and consume food, she said it is also crucial to “consider small-scale farmers as real partners for sustainable technologies. They must be granted incentives and be given improved rental conditions.” Globally, she said “farmers have been neglected, and in the Asia Pacific region, they are the poorest.”

The AFA paper noted that lack of youth policies in most countries as detrimental to the engagement of young people. They also have limited role in decision-making processes due to a lack of structured and institutionalized opportunities.

But the paper noted a silver lining through social media. Through “access to information and other new networking tools, young people across the region can have better opportunities to become more politically active and find space for the realization of their aspirations.”

Calls for nonstop innovation in communications software development in the field of agriculture, continuing instruction on agriculture and agriculture research to educate young people, improving research and technology development, adopting measures such as ecological agriculture and innovative irrigation and fertilisation techniques were echoed by panelists from agriculture-related organizations and academicians.

Professor David Morrison of Murdoch University in Perth, Australia said now is the time to focus on what data and technology can bring to agriculture. “Technology is used to develop data and data is a great way of changing behaviors. Data needs to be analyzed,” he said, adding that political leaders also have to understand data to help them implement evidence-based policies that will benefit farmers and consumers.

President of ADB Takehiko Nakao – Credit: ADB

ADB president Takehiko Nakao said the ADB is heartened to see that “the world is again paying attention to food.” While the institution sees continuing efforts in improving food-related technologies in other fields such as forestry and fisheries, he said it is agriculture that needs urgent improvements, citing such technologies as remote sensing, diversifying fertilisers and using insecticides that are of organic or natural-made substances.

Nakao said the ADB has provided loans and assistance since two years after its establishment in 1966 to the agriculture sector, where 30 percent of loans and grants were given out. The ADB will mark its 50^th year of development partnership in the region in December 2016. Headquartered in Manila, it is owned by 67 members—48 from the region. In 2015, ADB assistance totaled 27.2 billion dollars, including cofinancing of 10.7 billion dollars.

In its newest partnership is with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which is based in Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines, Nakao and IRRI director general Matthew Morell signed an agreement during the food security forum to promote food security in Asia Pacific by increasing collaboration on disseminating research and other knowledge on the role of advanced agricultural technologies in providing affordable food for all.

The partnership agreement will entail the two institutions to undertake annual consultations to review and ensure alignment of ongoing collaborative activities, and to develop a joint work program that will expand the use of climate-smart agriculture and water-saving technologies to increase productivity and boost the resilience of rice cultivation systems, and to minimize the carbon footprint of rice production.

Nakao said the ADB collaboration with IRRI is another step toward ensuring good food and nutrition for all citizens of the region. “We look forward to further strengthening our cooperation in this area to promote inclusive and sustainable growth, as well as to combat climate change.” Morell of the IRRI said the institution “looks forward to deepening our already strong partnership as we jointly develop and disseminate useful agricultural technologies throughout Asia.”

DG IPS Farhana Haque Rahman – Credit: ADB

The ADB’s earlier agreements on agriculture was with Cambodia in 2013 with a 70-million-dollar climate-smart agriculture initiative called the Climate-Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development Program that will include generating seeds that are better adapted to Cambodia’s climate.

ADB has committed two billion dollars annually to meet the rising demand for nutritious, safe, and affordable food in Asia and the Pacific, with future support to agriculture and natural resources to emphasize investing in innovative and high-level technologies.

By 2025, the institution said Asia Pacific will have a population of 4.4 billion, and with the rest of Asia experiencing unabated rising populations and migration from countryside to urban areas, the trends will also be shifting towards better food and nutritional options while confronting a changing environment of rising temperatures and increasing disasters that are harmful to agricultural yields.

ADB president Nakao said Asia will face climate change and calamity risks in trying to reach the new Sustainable Development Goals. The institution has reported that post-harvest losses have accounted for 30 percent of total harvests in Asia Pacific; 42 percent of fruits and vegetables and up to 30 percent of grains produced across the region are lost between the farm and the market caused by inadequate infrastructure such as roads, water, power, market facilities and transport systems.

Gathering about 250 participants from governments and intergovernmental bodies in the region that include multilateral and bilateral development institutions, private firms engaged in the agriculture and food business, research and development centers, think tanks, centers of excellence and civil society and advocacy organizations, the ADB held the food security summit with inclusiveness in mind and future directions from food production to consumption.

By Roberto Azevêdo
NAIROBI, Dec 23 2015 (IPS)

World Trade Organization (WTO) members concluded the Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi on 19 December by securing an historic agreement on a series of trade initiatives. The “Nairobi Package” pays fitting tribute to the Conference host, Kenya, by delivering commitments that will benefit in particular the organization’s poorest members.

Roberto Azevêdo

The elimination of agricultural export subsidies is particularly significant.

WTO members, ¬especially developing countries,¬ have consistently demanded action on this issue due to the enormous distorting potential of these subsidies for domestic production and trade. In fact, this task has been outstanding since export subsidies were banned for industrial goods more than 50 years ago.

WTO members’ decision tackles the issue once and for all. It removes the distortions that these subsidies cause in agriculture markets, thereby helping to level the playing field for the benefit of farmers and exporters in developing and least-developed countries.

This decision will also help to limit similar distorting effects associated with export credits and state trading enterprises.

And it will provide a better framework for international food aid ¬ maintaining this essential lifeline, while ensuring that it doesn’t displace domestic producers.

There are also important steps to improve food security, through decisions on public stockholding and towards a special safeguard mechanism, as well as a package of specific decisions for Least Developing Countries (LDCs).

This contains measures to enhance preferential rules of origin for LDCs and preferential treatment for LDC services providers.

And it contains a number of steps on cotton, such as eliminating export subsidies, and providing duty-free-quota-free market access for a range of LDC cotton products immediately.

In addition, we have approved the WTO membership of Liberia and Afghanistan, and we now have 164 member countries.
And I think we are all committed to supporting these two LDCs to boost their growth and development.

We also saw continued commitment to help build the trading capacity of LDCs through the excellent support shown at the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) pledging conference.

And, finally, a large group of members agreed on the expansion of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA). Again, this is an historic breakthrough. It will eliminate tariffs on 10 per cent of global trade ¬ making it our first major tariff cutting deal since 1996.

While we celebrate these outcomes, we have to be clear-sighted about the situation we are in today.

Success was achieved here despite members’ persistent and fundamental divisions on our negotiating agenda – ¬ not because those divisions have been solved.

We have to face up to this problem.

The Ministerial Declaration acknowledges the differing opinions. And it instructs us to find ways to advance negotiations in Geneva.

Members must decide, the world must decide, about the future of this organization.

The world must decide what path this organization should take.

Inaction would itself be a decision. And I believe the price of inaction is too high.

It would harm the prospects of all those who rely on trade today ¬ and it would disadvantage all those who would benefit from a reformed, modernized global trading system in the future ¬ particularly in the poorest countries.

So we have a very serious task ahead of us in 2016.

We came to Nairobi determined to deliver for all those we represent ¬ and particularly for the one billion citizens of Africa.

At the outset, I warned that we were not looking at a perfect outcome. And what we have delivered is not perfect. There are still so many vital issues which we must tackle.

But we have delivered a huge amount. The decisions taken in Nairobi this week will help to improve the lives and prospects of many people ¬ around the world and in Africa.

When we left Geneva, the international media had already written their headlines:

-‘WTO talks break down’

-‘Another failure at the WTO’

That’s exactly how it was in the Ninth Ministerial Conference in Bali two years ago. And we saw it again this year.

Well, we’re getting used to proving those catastrophic headlines wrong.

In the past, all too often, WTO negotiations had a habit of ending in failure.

But, despite adversity ¬ despite real challenges ¬ we are creating a new habit at the WTO: success.

(End)

Excerpt:

By Carlos M. Correa
GENEVA, Oct 15 2015 (IPS)

The pharmaceutical industry from the US and Europe scored a major victory with the adoption, in 1994, of a binding agreement on intellectual property (Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights – TRIPS) in the context of the nascent World Trade Organization (WTO).

While some transitional periods were allowed, the TRIPS Agreement did not leave any space for a special and differential treatment based on the countries’ levels of development. In particular, it imposed on all World Trade Organisation members (WTO) the obligation to grant patents in all fields of technology.

The lack of patent protection promotes price competition in the pharmaceutical market and, in some cases, clears the way for the development of generic pharmaceutical industries. The most noticeable case is that of India, which developed a strong pharmaceutical industry and is known today as “the pharmacy of the developing world.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an ambitious trade agreement between the U.S. with 11 other countries (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam).

Notably, there are major differences in the level of development of these countries (for example, Vietnam’s gross domestic product per capita (GDP) is approximately 43 times less than the US GDP per capita). Despite this, Washington seeks the application of the same standards of protection to all parties in the partnership.

In fact, tariffs are already low among the TPP negotiating countries. There are very little gains to be obtained from the TPP in this regard.

What these agreements tend to be really about are issues such as intellectual property rights. And the most important strategic reason of this initiative for the US is likely to be to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region, and to make the region less hospitable for the Chinese “state capitalism.”

The enhanced protection of pharmaceutical products was a key concern for the US in trade negotiations that led to the adoption of the TRIPS agreement. Despite the significant enhancement of the international standards of intellectual property protection that that agreement entailed, the pharmaceutical industry from the US and the European Union remained unsatisfied. They aimed at even higher standards of protection.

However, it soon became evident that it would not be possible to obtain such higher standards within the relevant multilateral organizations, WTO and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), where developing countries resisted further increases in intellectual property protections.

In this scenario, developed countries opted to seek the enhanced protection demanded by the pharmaceutical industry and other constituencies through bilateral or plurilateral trade agreements, where the bargaining position of individual countries is weaker and the promises of market access, or other real or expected trade advantages, make agreements of intellectual property more viable.

Thus, while under the TRIPS Agreement patents must last for 20 years from the date of application, the free trade agreements (FTAs) promoted by the US oblige the partner signatory countries to extend the patent term to compensate for “unreasonable” delays beyond a certain period in the procedures for the marketing approval of a medicine as well as in the examination and grant of patent applications.

FTAs also oblige, among other things, to grant patents based on “utility” rather than industrial applicability and, importantly, to secure market exclusivity on the basis of the protection of test data required for the marketing approval of pharmaceuticals, generally for five years from the date of such approval in the country where protection is sought. FTAs also require partners to establish a “linkage” between the marketing approval of medicines and patents, thereby granting pharmaceutical companies with rights that, under some FTAs, are also stronger than those available under the US law.

For instance, a study found that the patent term extension would generate in Colombia an increase in pharmaceutical expenditures of US$ 329 million and a reduction in pharmaceutical consumption of 7 per cent by 2025.

With respect to the potential impact of the TPP, in particular, a study by Australian and US researchers estimated that, in Vietnam, the government would only be able to provide anti-retroviral therapy to 30 per cent of people in living with HIV (down from its current rate of 68 per cent) since the cost per person per year of treatment would increase to US$ 501 under the US proposal from its current level of $127.22.

The negative impact of TRIPS-plus standards on access to medicines has been found even in developed countries that are not net exporters of intellectual property rights, such as in Canada and Australia.

The costs incurred by the smaller partners in FTAs are disproportionately high in relation to the benefits that accrue to pharmaceutical companies.

(End)

Excerpt:

These Zimbabwean farmers with their harvested sorghum are at the mercy of climate change, while the government struggles with meagre financing and tall ambitions to take adequate action. Credit: UNDP-ALM

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe , Aug 2 2015 (IPS)

With the U.N. Climate Change conference later this year in Paris fast approaching, Zimbabwe’s climate change commitments face the slow progress on an issue that continues to stalk other developing countries – climate finance.

As it prepares for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21), Zimbabwe – like many others in the global South – is grappling with radical climate shifts that have seen devastating exchanges of floods and droughts every year, and still awaits green bailout funds from developed nations, with officials here telling IPS, “this support should come in the forms of technology.”

The country’s halting progress on the climate front is being blamed by local climate researchers on the country’s failure to invest in state-of-the-art climate monitoring technology. More still needs to be done as the country heads to Paris, says Sherpard Zvigadza, Programmes Manager, Climate Change and Energy, for the Harare-based ZERO Regional Environment Organisation (ZERO)."The country [Zimbabwe] needs to partner with those in the private sector who are making an effort to develop projects or reduce their footprint, and implement a reward-based strategy so that both individuals and corporates are encouraged to support the government’s policies" – Steve Wentzel, director of Carbon Green Africa

“Zimbabwe should strengthen systematic observation, ensuring improved real-time observations and availability of meteorological data for research,” Zvigadza told IPS.

These concerns arise from what is seen here as repeated failure by the poorly-funded Meteorological Services Department to adequately monitor climate patterns and put in place effective early warning systems for disaster preparedness.

However, these constraints have not stopped Zimbabwe, which for the past two decades has seen a wilting of international financial support for crafting ambitious climate change interventions.

Recurrent climate-induced disasters have shown that this not the time to treat anything as “business as usual”, says Elisha Moyo, principal climate change researcher in the Climate Change Management Department of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate.

And these efforts have brought together civic society organisations (CSOs), farmers and ordinary Zimbabweans in what is expected to shape the country’s negotiations in Paris.

CSOs point to the fact that Zimbabwe has been identified by GLOBE International, which brings together legislators from all over the world, as having on the most comprehensive environmental laws in southern Africa, and say that this should be a stimulus for helping the country make greater strides in climate governance.

According to a climate ministry brief issued last month, Zimbabwe’s climate policy seeks, among others, weather and climate modelling, vulnerability and adaptation assessments, mitigation and low carbon development.

However, as tall as these ambitions sound, the climate ministry has acknowledged that in the absence of adequate financing the country could still be far from meeting its United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) commitments.

“There is a need to expand current projects as well as develop new projects throughout the country for the country to position itself to be able to raise funding for these developments,” said Steve Wentzel, director of Carbon Green Africa, a Zimbabwe-based company established to facilitate the generation of carbon credits through validating Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects.

“The country needs to partner with those in the private sector who are making an effort to develop projects or reduce their footprint, and implement a reward-based strategy so that both individuals and corporates are encouraged to support the government’s policies,” Wentzel told IPS.

“If the country is serious about moving away from business as usual, awareness raising is key for all stakeholders, including the general population as well as industry,” Zvigadza told IPS. “A vigorous campaign is needed across the country. More importantly, Zimbabwe’s national climate change response strategy has to be operationalised so that the challenges are addressed according to different local circumstances.”

Yet, by the climate ministry’s own admission, progress has remained slow due to the continuing problem of lack of funds, which Moyo believes should be tapped from the richer nations.

“As Africa, and supported by other developing countries from other regions, we believe the rich countries have not yet shouldered a fair share of the burden and should lead by example, in terms of cutting emissions and also providing financial support to poorer nations as stated in the Climate Change Convention,” Moyo told IPS.

And Zimbabwe certainly does need the money. The climate ministry is already wallowing in reduced state funding after the Finance Ministry slashed its national budget from 93 million dollars in 2014 to 52 million this year.

Meanwhile, domestic economic considerations are one of the obstacles to implementation of the country’s troubled climate change policy. Despite seeking to promote clean energy, power generation is still largely fossil fuel-based, where instead of cutting emissions, relatively cheaper coal feeds power generation.

The climate ministry policy brief says the country needs to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy production transmission and use”, but economic hardships have made this a tall order where millions also rely on highly-polluting firewood for fuel.

“We are compiling the “intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) and have been conducting consultations and data collection around the country especially with reference to the energy sector, which has a high potential of emission reductions through adoption of
renewable energy wherever possible,” Moyo told IPS.

INDCS are the post-2020 climate actions that countries say they will take under a new international agreement to be reached at COP21 in Paris, and to be submitted to the United Nations by September.

For its climate change ambitions to succeed, Zimbabwe must go back to the grassroots, says Wentzel, but unfortunately “there is a lack of knowledge of climate changes issues,” he told IPS.

As Washington Zhakata, Zimbabwe’s lead climate change negotiator put it: “The road to the Paris summit remains unclear with many stumbling blocks on the road.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

The ICT sector employed more than 14 million people in OECD countries in 2013, almost 3 percent of jobs in the 34-country bloc. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Jaya Ramachandran
PARIS, Jul 30 2015 (IPS)

The digital economy permeates countless aspects of the world economy, impacting sectors as varied as banking, retail, energy, transportation, education, publishing, media or health. But the full potential of the digital economy has yet to be realised even in the world’s most advanced and emerging countries, says a new report.

On the one hand, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are transforming the ways social interactions and personal relationships are conducted, with fixed, mobile and broadcast networks converging, and devices and objects increasingly connected to form the Internet of things.

On the other hand, none of the 34 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has a national strategy on protecting online privacy or funding research in this area, which tends to be viewed as a matter for law enforcement authorities to handle, says the report.

The OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2015, which covers areas from broadband penetration and industry consolidation to network neutrality and cloud computing in the OECD and its partner countries like Brazil, Colombia and Egypt, also stresses the need to do more to offer information and communication technology (ICT) skills training to help people transition to new types of digital jobs.

In a 2014 OECD survey, 26 out of 29 countries considered building broadband infrastructure as their top priority and 19 of 28 countries put digital privacy and security second and third, observes the report.

Asked about the future, countries placed skills development as their top objective, followed by public service improvements and digital content creation.

Other surveys cited in the report suggest that two-thirds of people are more concerned about their online privacy than a year ago and only a third believe private information on the Internet is secure. More than half fear monitoring by government agencies, adds the report.

Other important findings in the Digital Economy Outlook are:

Of 34 countries surveyed, 27 have a national digital strategy. Many were established or updated in 2013 or 2014. Most focus on telecoms infrastructure, broadband capacity and speed. Few cover international issues such as internet governance.

Seven of the OECD’s 34 member countries count more than one mobile broadband subscription per person. Around three-quarters of smartphone use in OECD countries occurs on private Wi-Fi access via fixed networks.

All OECD countries have at least three mobile operators and most have four. Prices for mobile services fell markedly between 2012 and 2014 with the biggest declines in Italy, New Zealand and Turkey. Prices rose in Austria and Greece, however.

The ICT sector employed more than 14 million people in OECD countries in 2013, almost 3 percent of jobs in the 34-country bloc. ICT employment ranges from above 4 percent of total employment in Ireland and Korea to below 2 percent in Greece, Portugal and Mexico.

ICT venture capital is on the rise again and is now back at its highest level in the U.S. since the dot-com bubble.

China is the leading gross exporter of ICT goods and services, but the U.S. is the top exporter when trade is calculated in value-added terms, due in part to the high presence of U.S. ICT services embodied in final products. Embodied ICT services also contributed to higher shares for India and the UK in value-added terms.

Korea is the most specialised of OECD and partner countries in computer, electronic and optical products; Luxembourg is strongest in telecoms; while Ireland, Sweden and the UK are most specialised in IT and other information services.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo introducing the panel discussion on 'Citizen Networks: The Promise of Technological Innovation' at SnT2015 in Vienna, June 2015. Photo credit: CTBTO

By Ramesh Jaura
VIENNA, Jun 30 2015 (IPS)

An international conference has highlighted advances made in detecting nuclear explosions,tracking storms or clouds of volcanic ash, locating epicentres of earthquakes, monitoring the drift of huge icebergs, observing the movements of marine mammals, and detecting plane crashes.

The five-day ‘Science and Technology 2015 Conference’ (SnT2015), which ended Jun. 26, was the fifth in a series of multi-disciplinary conferences organised by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which has been based in the Austrian capital since 1997.

The conference was attended by more than 1100 scientists and other experts, policy makers and representatives of national agencies, independent academic research institutions and civil society organisations from around the world.“With a strong verification regime and its cutting edge technology, there is no excuse for further delaying the [Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty] CTBT’s entry into force” – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

SnT2015 drew attention to an important finding of CTBTO sensors: the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 was the largest to hit Earth in at least a century.

Participants also heard that the Air Algérie flight between Burkina Faso and Algeria which crashed in Mali in July 2014 was detected by the CTBTO’s monitoring station in Cote d’Ivoire, 960 kilometres from the impact of the aircraft.

The importance of SnT2015 lies in the fact that CTBTO is tasked with campaigning for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which outlaws nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere: on the Earth’s surface, in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. It also aims to develop reliable tools to make sure that no nuclear explosion goes undetected.

These include seismic, hydro-acoustic, infrasound (frequencies too low to be heard by the human ear), and radionuclide sensors. Scientists and other experts demonstrated and explained in presentations and posters how the four state-of-the-art technologies work in practice.

170 seismic stations monitor shockwaves in the Earth, the vast majority of which are caused by earthquakes. But man-made explosions such as mine explosions or the announced North Korean nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013 have also been detected.

CTBTO’s 11 hydro-acoustic stations “listen” for sound waves in the oceans. Sound waves from explosions can travel extremely far underwater. Sixty infrasound stations on the Earth’s surface can detect ultra-low frequency sound waves that are emitted by large explosions.

CTBTO’s 80 radionuclide stations measure the atmosphere for radioactive particles; 40 of them also pick up noble gas, the “smoking gun” from an underground nuclear test. Only these measurements can give a clear indication as to whether an explosion detected by the other methods was actually nuclear or not. Sixteen laboratories support radionuclide stations.

When complete, CTBTO’s International Monitoring System (IMS) will consist of 337 facilities spanning the globe to monitor the planet for signs of nuclear explosions. Nearly 90 percent of the facilities are already up and running.

An important theme of the conference was performance optimisation which, according to W. Randy Bell, Director of CTBTO’s International Data Centre (IDC), “will have growing relevance as we sustain and recapitalise the IMS and IDC in the year ahead.”

In the past 20 years, the international community has invested more than one billion dollars in the global monitoring system whose data can be used by CTBTO member states – and not only for test ban verification purposes. All stations are connected through satellite links to the IDC in Vienna.

“Our stations do not necessarily have to be in the same country as the event, but in fact can detect events from far outside from where they are located. For example, the last DPRK (North Korean) nuclear test was picked up as far as Peru,” CTBTO’s Public Information Officer Thomas Mützelburg told IPS.

“Our 183 member states have access to both the raw data and the analysis results. Through their national data centres, they study both and arrive at their own conclusion as to the possible nature of events detected,” he said. Scientists from Papua New Guinea and Argentina said they found the data “extremely useful”.

Stressing the importance of data sharing, CTBTO Executive Secretary, Lassina Zerbo, said in an interview with Nature: “If you make your data available, you connect with the outside scientific community and you keep abreast of developments in science and technology. Not only does it make the CTBTO more visible, it also pushes us to think outside the box. If you see that data can serve another purpose, that helps you to step back a little bit, look at the broader picture and see how you can improve your detection.”

Photo credit: CTBTO

In opening remarks to the conference, Zerbo said: “You will have heard me say again and again that I am passionate about this organisation. Today I am not only passionate but very happy to see all of you who share this passion: a passion for science in the service of peace. It gives me hope for the future of our children that the best and brightest scientists of our time congregate to perfect the detection of the bomb instead of working to perfect the bomb itself.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set the tone in a message to the conference when he said: “With a strong verification regime and its cutting edge technology, there is no excuse for further delaying the CTBT’s entry into force.”

South African Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, pointed out that her country “is a committed and consistent supporter” of CTBTO. She added: “South Africa has been at the forefront of nuclear non-proliferation in Africa for over twenty years. We gave up our nuclear arsenal and signed the Pelindaba Treaty in 1996, which establishes Africa as a nuclear weapons-free zone, a zone that only came into force in July 2009.

Beside the presentations by scientists, discussion panels addressed topics of current special interest in the CTBT monitoring community. One alluded to the role of science in on-site inspections (OSIs), which are provided for under the Treaty after it enters into force.

This discussion benefited from the experience of the 2014 Integrated Field Exercise (IFE14) in Jordan. “IFE14 was the largest and most comprehensive such exercise so far conducted in the build-up of CTBTO’s OSI capabilities,” said IDC director Bell.

Participants also had an opportunity to listen to a discussion on the opportunities that new and emerging technologies can play in overcoming the challenges of nuclear security. Members of the Technology for Global Security (Tech4GS) group joined former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry in a panel discussion on ‘Citizen Networks: the Promise of Technological Innovation’.

“We are verging on another nuclear arms race,” said Perry. “I do not think that it is irreversible. This is the time to stop and reflect, debate the issue and see if there’s some third choice, some alternative, between doing nothing and having a new arms race.”

A feature of the conference was the CTBT Academic Forum focused on ‘Strengthening the CTBT through Academic Engagement’, at which Bob Frye, prestigious Emmy award-winning producer and director of documentaries and network news programme, pleaded for the need to inspire “the next generation of critical thinkers” to help usher in a world free of nuclear tests and atomic weapons of mass destruction.

The forum also provided an overview of impressive CTBT online educational resources and experiences with teaching the CTBT from the perspective of teachers and professors in Austria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Pakistan and Russia.

With a view to bridging science and policy, the forum discussed ‘technical education for policymakers and policy education for scientists’ with the participation of eminent experts, including Rebecca Johnson, executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy; Nikolai Sokov of the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies; Ference Dalnoki-Veress of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies; Edward Ifft of the Center for Security Studies, Georgetown; and Matt Yedlin of the Faculty of Science at the University of British Columbia.

There was general agreement on the need to integrate technical issues of CTBT into training for diplomats and other policymakers, and increasing awareness of CTBT and broader nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament policy issues within the scientific community.

Yet another panel – comprising Jean du Preez, chief of CTBTO’s external relations, protocol and international cooperation, Piece Corden of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Thomas Blake of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, and Jenifer Mackby of the Federation of American Scientists – looked ahead with a view to forging new and better links with and beyond academia, effectively engaging with the civil society, the youth and the media.

“Progress comes in increments,” said one panellist, “but not by itself.”

[With inputs from Valentina Gasbarri]

Edited by Phil Harris    

The writer can be contacted at headquarters@ips.org

During re:publica 2015, Juliet Wanyiri (centre), illustrates a practical workshop organised by Foondi*, of which she is founder and CEO. Credit: re:publica/Jan Zappner

By Francesca Dziadek
BERLIN, Jun 26 2015 (IPS)

In a major paradigm shift, the German government is now placing its bets on digitalisation for its development cooperation policy with Africa, under what it calls a Strategic Partnership for a ’Digital Africa’.

According to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), “through a new strategic partnership in the field of information and communication technology (ICT), German development cooperation will be joining forces with the private sector to support the development and sustainable management of Digital Africa’s potential.”

“Digitalisation offers a vast potential for making headway on Africa’s sustainable development,” said Dr Friedrich Kitschelt, a State Secretary in BMZ, noting however that this “benefits all sides, including German and European enterprises.”

Broad consensus about the overlap between public and private interests in attaining sustainable development goals was apparent at two high-profile events earlier this year – the annual re:publica conference on internet and society, and BMZ’s ‘Africa: Continent of Opportunities – Bridging the Digital Divide’ conference, both held in Berlin."Governments will put up walls, but young people will always find ways of circumventing barriers – the key issue is how to bring services locally and work together in democratic internet governance, promoting civil society engagement and private sector partnerships” – Muhammad Radwan of icecairo

In Berlin for re:publica 2015 in May, Mugethi Gitau, a young Kenyan tech manager from Nairobi’s iHub, an incubator for “technology, innovation and community”, delivered a sharp presentation titled ‘10 Things Europe Can Learn From Africa’.  “We are pushing ahead with creative digital solutions,” said Gitau, delivering sharp know-how and hard facts.

The Kenyan start-up iHub is a member of the m:lab East Africa consortium, the region’s centre for mobile entrepreneurship, which was established through a seed grant from the World Bank’s InfoDev programme for “creating sustainable businesses in the knowledge economy”.

In turn, m:lab East Africa is part of the Global Information Gathering (GIG) initiative, which was founded in Berlin in 2003 as a partnership of BMZ, the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Centre for International Peace Operations (ZIF) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The m:lab East Africa consortium has spawned 10 tech businesses which have gone regional, and boasts a portfolio of 150 start-ups, including Kopo Kopo, an add on to the M-Pesa money transfer application which has scaled into Africa, the PesaPal application for mobile credits, the Eneza ‘one laptop per child’ project, and locally relevant rural applications such as iCow and M-Farm which help farmers keep track of their yields and cut out the middleman to reach buyers directly.

“We are by nature a people who love to give, crowdsourcing is in our genes, our local villages have a tradition of coming together to help each other out, so it’s no wonder we have taken to sharing and social media like naturals,” Gitau told IPS, mentioning the popular chamas or “merry-go-rounds” whereby people bank with each other, avoiding banking interest costs.

Referring to the exponential tide of 700 million mobile phone users in Africa, which has already surpassed Europe, Thomas Silberhorn, a State Secretary in BMZ, told a re:publica meeting on e-information and freedom of information projects in developing countries: “This is a time of huge potential, like all historical transformations.”

The pace and range of innovative mobile solutions from Africa has been formidable. The creative use of SMS has enabled a range of services which enable urban and, significantly, rural populations to access anything from banking to health services, job listings and microcredits, not to mention mobilising “shit storms” against public authority inefficiencies.

However, the formidable pace of digital penetration has raised concerns about the “digital divide” – the widening socio-economic inequalities between those who have access to technology and those who have not.

Increasingly a North-South consensus is growing concerning three core aspects of digital economic development – the regulation of broadband internet as a public utility; the sustainable potential of mobile technology and low price smart devices to bring effective solutions to a whole gamut of local needs; and the need for good infrastructure as a precondition for environmental protection and as the leverage people need to lift themselves out of poverty.

New models of development cooperation, technology transfer and e-participation governance are emerging in response to the impact of digitalisation on all sectors of society and service provision in areas as disparate as they are increasingly connected including health, food and agriculture – access to education, communication, media, information and data and democratic participation.

“Tackling the digital divide is crucial,” said Philibert Nsengimana, Rwandan Minister of Youth and ICT, addressing BMZ’s ‘Africa: Continent of Opportunities – Bridging the Digital Divide’ conference. “It encompasses a package of vision, implementation and much needed coordination among stakeholders.”

Rwanda, which now boasts a number of e-participation projects such as Sobanukirwa, the country’s first freedom of information project, is committed to universally accessible broadband and is rising to the forefront of Africa’s power-sharing technical revolution. 

The most active proponents of the e-revolution argue that digitalisation also offers the possibility to place governments under scrutiny and have leaders judged from the vantage point of e-participation, open data, freedom of expression and information – all elements of the power-sharing models that have seen the light  in the internet age.

“Governments will put up walls, but young people will always find ways of circumventing barriers – the key issue is how to bring services locally and work together in democratic internet governance, promoting civil society engagement and private sector partnerships,” said Muhammad Radwan of icecairo.

The icecairo initiative is part of the international icehubs network, which started with iceaddis in Ethiopia and icebauhaus in Germany.

The icehubs network (where ‘ice’ stands for Innovation-Collaboration-Enterprise) is an emerging open network of ‘hubs’, or community-driven technology innovation spaces, that promote the invention and development of home-grown, affordable technological products and services for meeting local challenges.

The network is enabled by GIZ, a company specialising in international development, which is owned by the German government and mainly operates on behalf of BMZ, which is now intent on using a “digital agenda” to guide German development cooperation with Africa.

“Let us take digitalisation seriously,” said Kitschelt. “Let us use the potential of ICT for development, address the digital and educational divide and build on that resourcefulness in our partnerships by advocating for digital rights and engaging in dialogue with the tech community, software developers, social entrepreneurs, makers, hackers, bloggers, programmers and internet activists worldwide.”

Kitschelt’s words certainly found their echo among African e-revolutionaries whose rallying cry has moved forward significantly from “fight the power“ to “share the power”.

However, while this may be well be what the future looks like, there were also those at the re:publica meeting on e-information and freedom of information who wondered about priorities when Silberhorn of BMZ told participants: “”The fact that in many development countries we are witnessing better access to mobile phones than toilets is a clear catalyser for changing development priorities.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

*  Foondi is an African design and training start-up that focuses on creating access to open source, low-cost appropriate technology-related sources to leverage local technologies for bottom-up innovation. It provides a platform for problem setting, designing and prototyping entrepreneurial-based ventures. Its larger vision is to nurture a group of young innovators in Africa working on building solutions that target emerging markets and under-served communities in Africa.

Some organisations are developing alert applications that journalists, human rights defenders and others can use to send an emergency message (along with GPS co-ordinates) to their friends and colleagues if they feel in immediate danger. Credit: Johan Larsson/ cc by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 2015 (IPS)

The widespread use of digital technology – including satellite imagery, body cameras and smart phones – is fast becoming a new tool in monitoring and capturing human rights violations worldwide.

Singling out the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Summary Executions Christof Heyns says: “We have all seen how the actions of police officers and others who use excessive force are captured on cell phones and lead to action against the perpetrators.”“We must guard against a mind-set that ‘if it is not digital it did not happen.'" -- Christof Heyns

Billions of people around the world now carry a powerful weapon to capture such events in their pockets, he said.

“The fact that this is well-known can be a significant deterrent to abuses,” Heyns said, in a report to the 29th session of the 47-member Human Rights Council, which began its three-week session in Geneva June 15.

Heyns said the hardware and software that produce and transmit information in the digital space can play an increasing role in the protection of all human rights, including the right to life, by reinforcing the role of ‘civilian witnesses’ in documenting rights violations.

In his report, Heyns urged the U.N. system and other international human rights bodies to “catch up” with rapidly developing innovations in human rights fact-finding and investigations.

“The digital age presents challenges that can only be met through the smart use of digital tools,” he said.

Javier El-Hage, General Counsel at the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF), told IPS that HRF can corroborate the special rapporteur’s findings that ICTs, like cellphone cameras or even satellite imagery, play a key role in documenting extrajudicial executions.

From democratic societies like Germany or the United States where ‘civilian witnesses’ documenting instances of police brutality and extrajudicial executions create an effective check on law enforcement abuse, to societies under competitive authoritarian regimes like Kazakhstan or Venezuela where witnesses themselves can face extrajudicial execution for filming police brutality, ICTs play a huge role in documenting this egregious type of human rights violation, he said.

“Even in North Korea, the world’s most repressive and tightly closed society, satellite imagery has long helped determine the exact location and population estimates of prison camps, and recently helped uncover a disturbing case of executions by firing squad, where executioners used anti-aircraft machine guns.”

In his report, Heyns told the Human Rights Council the hardware and software that produce and transmit information in the digital space can play an increasing role in the protection of all human rights, including the right to life, by reinforcing the role of ‘civilian witnesses’ in documenting rights violations.

He said various organisations are developing alert applications that journalists, human rights defenders and others can use to send an emergency message (along with GPS co-ordinates) to their friends and colleagues if they feel in immediate danger.

“New information tools can also empower human rights investigations and help to foster accountability where people have lost their lives or were seriously injured,” the Special Rapporteur said.

The use of other video technologies, ranging from CCTV cameras to body-worn “cop cams”, can further contribute to filling information gaps.

Resources such as satellite imagery to verify such videos, or sometime to show evidence of violations themselves, is also an important dimension, he noted.

But despite the many advantages offered by ICTs, Heyns said it would be short-sighted not to see the risks as well.

“Those with the power to violate human rights can easily use peoples’ emails and other communications to target them and also to violate their privacy,” he said.

The fact that people can use social media to organise spontaneous protests can lead authorities to perceive a threat – and to over-react.

Moreover, there is a danger that what is not captured on video is not taken seriously. “We must guard against a mind-set that ‘if it is not digital it did not happen,’” he stressed.

El-Hage told IPS his Foundation also agrees with the special rapporteur that ICTs are a double-edged sword because through them governments can “easily access the emails and other communications” of law-abiding citizens, especially political opponents, journalists and human rights defenders, “to target them and violate their privacy.”

HRF has recently denounced the cases of targeted surveillance and persecution against pro-democracy activists Hisham Almiraat in Morocco and Waleed Abu AlKhair in Saudi Arabia, and was among the organisations that submitted a white paper to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to inform his own report on the way ‘encryption’ and ‘anonymity’ can protect both the rights to privacy and free speech.

In his report, Heyns also cautioned that not all communities, and not all parts of the world, are equally connected, and draws special attention to the fact that “the ones that not connected are often in special need of protection.”

“There is still a long way to go for all of us to understand fully how we can use these evolving and exciting but in some ways also scary new tools to their best effect,” Heyn said pointing out that not all parts of the international human rights community are fully aware of the power and pitfalls of digital fact-finding.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

There has been robust growth in Internet access and usage over the past few years and Africa is now primed to take advantage of the social and economic opportunities that Internet can bring to people across the continent, according to Kathy Brown, President and CEO of the Internet Society.

Speaking at the Africa Internet Summit (AIS) being held in the Tunisian capital from Jun. 2 to 5, Brown highlighted the progress made in recent years to bring improved Internet access and availability to more people in Africa, noting how this growth has provided a strong foundation for stimulating opportunity through an enabling environment defined by inclusion, innovation and entrepreneurship.

“Africa’s recent economic growth rates and growing entrepreneurial spirit are combining to create a climate of opportunity,” said Brown.

“Advances in Internet infrastructure and the meteoric rise of the mobile Internet have already transformed the African technology landscape. I believe that Africa’s Internet is now at a tipping point, poised for further positive change and expansion as the continent looks forward with confidence to the future.”

However, she noted that there are still barriers which must be overcome in order to capture the full economic and social promise of the Internet. While connectivity is on the rise and available bandwidth in Africa has increased significantly, challenges for the African Internet business ecosystem still include factors such as the cost of broadband, online fraud, lack of local content and fragmented markets.

“Africa is now the frontier for the next wave of Internet progress,” said Brown. “While there is huge potential for Africa to continue building an Internet that will best serve its needs and its people, it is critical that true collaboration across Africa’s technical community, a culture of innovation and a spirit of entrepreneurship form part of this process.

The Internet Society stands with Africa to continue the great momentum under way to overcome challenges and enable the economic and social possibilities that only a truly open, trusted Internet can deliver.”

The Internet Society is an international, non-profit organisation founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet-related standards, education and policy.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Srun Srorn, a trainer for the E-learning project, walks teachers at Koh Kong High School in Cambodia through a new online sexual education curriculum. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS

By Branislav Gosovic *
VILLAGE TUDOROVICI, Montenegro, May 28 2015 (IPS)

The Internet – and the applications that it has spawned – is the single most important technological innovation that has brought together and interlinked humankind in a real, tangible and interactive way.

Among other benefits, it has:While having a universal presence in each country and in the life of the majority of humankind that enjoys its amenities, the Internet is untouchable, controlled by someone somewhere who is invisible and unknown.

• Made possible instantaneous worldwide communication and interaction
• Simplified and facilitated many previously time consuming, onerous and costly tasks
• Enabled a networking that can serve as a means for building a global community, and developing understanding and cooperation
• Created the “Internet dependence” for the well-being and functioning of society, economy, and daily life and existence of individuals, which has generated a common and shared interest in keeping the Internet functioning, in good order, and continuously improving it.

The Internet has meant a “great leap” forward for humankind and made it possible for it to “leap-frog” and “short-circuit” many of the obstacles and challenges that it had faced earlier on its road to a shared but uncertain future.

However, this great technological communication advance has not been accompanied by a corresponding socio-political leap of systemic change, and the Internet has been weighed down by the legacies of the past and the nature of the existing world order.

Rather than aiming to place the promise and capabilities of the Internet at the disposal of enlightened, common global objectives of humankind and to subject it to democratic multilateral governance, some of the key actors seem to view it primarily as their own property.

They want to be in charge of it and use it for their own strategic ends and objectives, for global expansion and dominance, and the exploitation of new technological possibilities to harvest the planet for what amounts to unlimited creation of wealth, including via virtual means, and massive “invisible” transfer of resources to the core countries of the North.

The resulting situation has been depicted aptly in the recent draft, “Tunis Call for a People’s Internet”, circulated at the Workshop “Organizing an Internet Social Forum – A Call to Occupy the Internet”, held at the April 2015 World Social Forum. It merits to be quoted:

“The Internet today has become an integral and essential part of our daily lives, more and more of our activities are organized through and around the virtual spaces, the networks, online services and the technology it comprises.  It has restructured the very way in which we live, work, play and organise our societies. In many aspects, this is so even for people who at present have no direct Internet access.

At the same time, we are alarmed to see how both our private and public spaces are being co-opted and controlled for private gain; how private corporations are carving the public internet into walled spaces; how our personal data is being manipulated and proprietised; how a global surveillance society is emerging, with little or no privacy; how information on the Internet is being arbitrarily censored, and people’s right to communicate curtailed; and how the Internet is being militarized. Meanwhile, decision-making on public policy matters relating to the Internet remains dangerously removed from the mechanisms of democratic governance.”

The Internet has become controversial not only because of the hegemonic attitude of the key country and because of the free hand given to its monopolistic global Internet-based corporations, but also because it is rooted in and fueled by larger controversies, including decades-old, unresolved development issues.

This includes the questions of transfer of science and technology, intellectual property regimes, and international regulation of transnational corporations, all of which have been on the international agenda for five decades without any visible progress having been made.

There is also the question of “ownership” and “participation”. There is a complete dependence on the Internet worldwide, an addiction that cannot be shaken off. While having a universal presence in each country and in the life of the majority of humankind that enjoys its amenities, the Internet is untouchable, controlled by someone somewhere who is invisible and unknown.

This dependencia when it comes to the Internet governance and control exercised by the interlinked centres in the North, which include military and security apparatus as well as cyber-corporations, produces a palpable feeling of discomfort, frustration, helplessness, exposure and loss of sovereignty, especially but not only in the developing countries.

Drawing on past experiences, principles of the U.N. Charter, and the developing countries’ initiatives for the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and New International Information Order (NIIO), one can arrive at some conclusions and recommendations regarding a reform of the Internet and the bolstering of its usefulness to the international community and its common goals, including improved functioning of human society.

The aim should be to defuse the mounting conflict and discontent through political and conceptual liberation of the Internet by making it into a global public good and service within the U.N. framework, with specific objectives and functions directed at satisfying the needs of humankind and helping to overcome problems and challenges, including those stemming from past history and uneven progress and development of the international community.

The Internet should be declared as the common heritage of humankind, a global public good and service embedded within the framework of the United Nations.  This implies and requires, among other things:

• That the Internet becomes part of the U.N. family by creating a UNINTERNET organization in the framework of the U.N. General Assembly, one inspired by democratic governance and solidarity of humankind
• That the Internet management and innovation be shared and participatory, and that they involve both public and private entities in cooperative endeavours
• That current international intellectual property regime undergoes a major review and fundamental modifications
• That income generated by the Internet, including by global taxation of profits made by services that it enables, be used for global causes of public good within the framework of the United Nations and that in this manner the Internet becomes a major source of international funding for public purposes, including those related to overcoming poverty, sustainable development and climate change, food security, education and health, which now get a few drops from these massive global flows via philanthropic gestures of some who have become enormously wealthy thanks to the Internet
• That the Internet global infrastructure be public property of the international community and that international non-profit enterprises be established under the U.N. auspices to provide Internet services, software and applications that would be in the public domain
• That new modes of international accounting and regulation be evolved, as a means to obtain a global overview and control of the financial flows and services via the Internet
• That a set of goals and objectives of the Internet be elaborated and adopted as the U.N. Declaration or Charter on the Internet, which would serve as the basic reference and guide for the Internet’s future development, management and operation.

Given the recent developments on the world scene, the overall context seems to be ripening for advocating the above approach, which implies a major departure from the present practices and would be a serious competitor to the existing North- and private corporations-dominated Internet.

It would also represent a return to the basic values embodied in the U.N. Charter and the decades-long U.N.-based efforts to evolve democratic and equitable world economic and political order.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Children surf the net in a remote island community in the Philippines where fishing is the main source of income. Credit: eKindling/Lubang Tourism.

By Branislav Gosovic *
VILLAGE TUDOROVICI, Montenegro, May 21 2015 (IPS)

More than four decades ago, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) launched the concept of a New International Information Order (NIIO).

Its initiative led to the establishment of an independent commission within the fold of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which produced a report, published in 1980, on a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO).Incomprehensible to the general public and not suitable for consideration in multilateral policy forums, the Internet governance deliberations have largely been under control of the world superpower and its cyber mega-corporations from Silicon Valley.

The report, titled “One World, Many Voices,” is usually referred to as the MacBride Report after its chairman.

The very idea of venturing to criticise and challenge the existing global media, namely the information and communication hegemony of the West, touched a raw political nerve, apparently a much more sensitive one than that irked by the developing countries’ New International Economic Order (NIEO) proposals.

A determined, no-punches-spared counteroffensive was launched by the Anglo-American tandem, which silenced UNESCO, effectively banning the MacBride Report and excluding the concept of NWICO from the international discourse and U.N. agenda.

The neo-liberal globalisation and neo-con geopolitics tide was on the rise and reigning supreme on the world scene.

The common front of the South was wavering and unsure vis-à-vis the well orchestrated challenge from the North and its multilateral arsenal deployed via the Bretton Woods and WTO troika – and, indeed, via the global media it controlled.

On the defensive and in retreat, with individual countries and their leaders targeted, pressured and tamed, the Global South lowered its profile and, facing stonewalling developed countries, it effectively shelved much of its 1960s/1970s agenda, including its quest for NIIO.

A decade ago, at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the developing countries did not have the collective will and were not prepared and organised to raise and press these broader issues.

They focused on the “digital divide”, as their key concern, which, although important, was not politically sensitive and did not represent a challenge to the existing global information order.

The rise and evolution of the Internet found the South ill-prepared to deal in a comprehensive manner with its implications, challenges and opportunities that it presented, not only for the developing countries individually and collectively, but also for the world order – economic, information and political – and for humankind in general.

The U.N. was marginalised and not allowed in depth to analyse and in an integrated, cross-sectoral and sustained way to deal with the Internet, and as a result did not provide a focus and platform that could have prompted and assisted the Global South in building and evolving its own case and vision.

The Internet-related debates and analyses have largely been focused on and limited to highly specialised and technical, often esoteric, acronym-dominated questions of its governance, which, though of vital importance, has helped to conceal or bypass many fundamental concerns.

Incomprehensible to the general public and not suitable for consideration in multilateral policy forums, the Internet governance deliberations have largely been under control of the world superpower and its cyber mega corporations from Silicon Valley, and the US-centric nature of the Internet has been defended tenaciously and preserved.

The WSIS+10 Review will be taking place shortly. There is an apparent attempt by the West – assisted by its transnational corporations (TNCs) dominating and providing key services on the Internet – to minimise the political importance and limit substantive outputs of this event.

The Group of 77 (G77) and NAM have to focus not only on the non-implementation of the Tunis agenda, but also to work out their position concerning the basic, underlying issues, including the linkages between the Internet and the international development agenda, and, more broadly, the Internet’s relevance to the international economic and political order and world peace.

There is the risk that WSIS+10 Review may turn out to be a missed opportunity for the South, and yet another encounter forced to remain within the parameters drawn and preferred by the traditional, well-entrenched masters of the global information and communication order.

Waiting one more decade for the next WSIS+20 Review may not be a recommended approach given the global economic and geo-political trends.

This relative circumspection of the Global South regarding the nature and future of the Internet is compensated in part by the voices coming from some sectors of the civil society that dare stray beyond what is allowed and permissible under the reigning global paradigm.

Thus, for example, the workshop “Organizing an Internet Social Forum”, held at the 2015 World Social Forum (WSF) in Tunis, articulated an alternative vision of an Internet and its directions for the future radically different from the current dogma.

And, an international conference on the Internet as a Global Public Resource was recently hosted by government of Malta and DiploFoundation.

“Global public resource” is a term akin to “global public goods”. The latter is a concept first launched by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) but expurgated from its work and the U.N. discourse during the recent period, probably seen as unsuitable and a threat to the ideological purity of the privatisation gospel, a move to accommodate the political predilections of dominant elites and the current doctrinaire aversion to anything “public”.

To move the global debate and multilateral negotiations in a desired direction largely depends on the developing countries as a collectivity, the Global South.

These countries need to grasp the gravity of the systemic issues involved, on par and indeed in some ways more important than those of the traditional international economic, financial, political and social agendas.

The moment is ripe for them to brush up on the original NAM NIIO initiative and the Report of the McBride Commission on NWICO, and consider their relevance in the age of the Internet.

They should work on an alternative vision of the Internet, its functions and governance, which should evolve into the backbone of a future global information and communication order needed in a multipolar world of the 21st century.

Currently, the Internet remains a prisoner of the dominant neo-liberal paradigm and its mantras forced upon the planet by the Western powers and in the service of their global, geopolitical and corporate interests. It needs to be liberated from these shackles.

Debate and study that view the Internet from humankind’s point of view need to be launched. This will require the Global South to do its homework in depth and fully on the implications and potential roles of the Internet, in order to prepare its platform and press for the initiating of all-inclusive multilateral negotiations and debate.

The BRICS countries together possess the necessary expertise, experience and power to provide the leadership and motor force for mobilising the Global South’s collective stand and action on the Internet.

With the high likelihood that the core countries of the West will react negatively, pressure individual developing countries (as appears to have been the case with Brazil, which has lowered its traditionally forceful public stance on Internet issues), and that obstacles within the U.N. system will persist, doing something concrete independently, via South-South cooperation will be required, and indeed is the only way out of the current impasse.

Here many options exist, including creating supporting institutions and expert bodies and organising regular deliberations, at both technical and political levels.

Bridges should be built with the progressive civil society and possibly with some like-minded countries in the North that are not too happy with the existing system.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

The collapse of autocratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt broke the state's stranglehold on the local press, but journalists and bloggers must still be careful what they say. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS

By Valentina Ieri
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 2015 (IPS)

While technology has given millions greater freedom to express themselves, in the world’s 10 most censored countries, this basic right exists only on paper, if at all.

According to a report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which will be officially released at U.N. headquarters on Apr. 27, the worst offenders are Eritrea and North Korea, followed by Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Iran, China, Myanmar and Cuba."Countries that were on our list in previous years continue to be on the list. But the forms of censorship have changed." -- CPJ's Courtney Radsch

Courtney Radsch, the advocacy director of CPJ, told IPS, “These countries use a wide range of traditional tactics of censorship, including jailing of journalists, harassment of journalists, prosecuting local press and independent press.”

According to CPJ’s 2014 prison census, Eritrea is Africa’s leading jailer of journalists, with at least 23 behind bars – none of whom has been tried in court or even charged with a crime. Among the other most censored countries on the list is China with 44, Iran with 30, and 17 jailed journalists in Ethiopia.

In countries where governments jail reporters regularly for critical coverage, many journalists are forced to flee rather than risk arrest, said the report.

Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Felix Horne, told IPS, “If you are a journalist in Ethiopia, you are faced with a stark choice: either you self-censor your writings, you end up in prison, or you are exiled from your country.”

According to the report Journalism is not a Crime, released by HRW in January 2015, over 30 journalists fled Ethiopia in 2014. Six of the last independent publications have shut down and there are at least 19 journalists and bloggers in prison for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

In both Ethiopia and Eritrea, anti-terrorism laws have been used to effectively silence dissenting voices and to target opposition politicians, journalists, and activists, Horne said.

“This law is the ultimate threat for Ethiopian journalists and its use against bloggers and journalists has led to increased rates of self-censorship amongst what is left of Ethiopia’s independent media scene.”

Traditional forms of censorship are going hand in hand with new subtle, modern, and faster strategies such as internet restrictions, regulation of media and press laws, and the limitation of mobile devices.

Radsch underlined, “The situation has gotten worse. We have seen a historical level of imprisonment of journalists and an increasing expansion of censorship (which) developed more sophisticated forms, including pre-publications censorship, restricted access to info content, and content regulations.”

The CPJ report says that in order to avoid an “Arab Spring” in Eritrea, the authorities have strongly limited internet access, with no possibility of gathering independent information.

Radsch highlighted that gathering public information through local internet access – the right to broadband – is recognised by the U.N., as a fundamental human right. But, in Eritrea and North Korea, as well as Cuba, the internet is essentially not permitted.

Access to mobile phones is also restricted.

“There are virtually no phones in Eritrea and there are limited phones in North Korea, where they can get in through smuggling networks from China,” she said, adding that these kind of restrictions are applied not only to reporters, but to the general public more broadly.

According to CPJ, globally, Eritrea has the lowest rate of cell phone users, with just 5.6 percent of the population owning one. In North Korea, only 9.7 percent of the population has cell phones, excluding phones smuggled in from China.

Other countries, including Saudi Arabia, China, Vietnam and Azerbaijan, have internet, but its access is strongly limited through the blocking of web content, restrictive access regulations, and persecuting those who violates the rules, added Radsch.

Censorship in the 10 listed countries affect mainly local journalists, apart from the case of Egypt where foreign reporters have been imprisoned, said Radsch. But censorship is also applied to foreign correspondents in other ways, such as denying entry visas to those countries or by deporting them.

The previous two lists of most censored countries compiled by CPJ date back to 2006 and 2012.

Radsch said, “One of the reasons why we cannot publish these lists every year is because censorship tactics have not changed much from year to year. In general, countries that were on our list in previous years continue to be on the list. But the forms of censorship have changed.”

To keep track of government data is difficult due to their lack of transparency, explained Radsch.

Although the international community is aware of human rights violations in repressive countries, concrete action to protect freedom of expression is still lacking.

Horne underlined that in Ethiopia, for instance, despite its dismal human rights record, the country continues to enjoy significant support from Western governments, both in relation to Ethiopia’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its role as a regional peacekeeper.

“But ignoring Ethiopia’s horrendous human rights situation and the internal tensions this is causing may have long-term implications for Western interests in the Horn of Africa,” Horne concluded.

CPJ is also calling on the international community to ensure that anti-terrorist laws are not used illegitimately by states to strengthen censorship even further against the press.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

“There is no doubt that African small-scale producers need much greater support in their efforts, but GM seeds which are designed for large-scale industrial production have no place in smallholder systems”. Credit: La Via Campesina/2007/Creative Commons

By Haidee Swanby and Mariann Bassey Orovwuje
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 1 2015 (IPS)

The most persistent myth about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is that they are necessary to feed a growing global population.

Highly effective marketing campaigns have drilled it into our heads that GMOs will produce more food on less land in an environmentally friendly manner. The mantra has been repeated so often that it is considered to be truth.

Now this mantra has come to Africa, sung by the United States administration and multinational corporations like Monsanto, seeking to open new markets for a product that has been rejected by so many others around the globe.“It may be tempting to believe that hunger can be solved with technology, but African social movements have pointed out that skewed power relations are the bedrock of hunger in Africa”

While many countries have implemented strict legal frameworks to regulate GMOs, African nations have struggled with the legal, scientific and infrastructural resources to do so.

This has delayed the introduction of GMOs into Africa, but it has also provided the proponents of GMOs with a plum opportunity to offer their assistance and, in the process, helping to craft laws on the continent that promote the introduction of barely regulated GMOs and create investor-friendly environments for agribusiness.

Their line is that African governments must adopt GMOs as a matter of urgency to deal with hunger and that laws implementing pesky and expensive safety measures, or requiring assessments of socio-economic impacts, will only act as obstructions.

To date only seven African countries have complete legal frameworks to deal with GMOs and only four – South Africa, Burkina Faso, Egypt and Sudan – have approved commercial cultivation of a GM crop.

The drive to open markets for GMOs in Africa is not only happening through “assistance” resulting in permissive legal frameworks for GMOs, but also through an array of “philanthropical” projects, most of them funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

One such project is Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA), funded by the Gates Foundation in collaboration with Monsanto. Initially the project sought to develop drought tolerant maize varieties in five pilot countries but, as the project progressed, it incorporated one of Monsanto’s most lucrative commercial traits into the mix – MON810, which enables the plant to produce its own pesticide.

Interestingly, MON810 has recently come off patent, but Monsanto retains ownership when it is stacked with another gene, in this case, drought tolerant.

WEMA has provided a convenient vehicle for the introduction of Monsanto’s controversial product, but it has also used its influence to shape GM-related policy in the countries where it works.

The project has refused to run field trials in Tanzania and Mozambique until those countries amend their “strict liability” laws, which will make WEMA, and future companies selling GMOs, liable for any damages they may cause.

WEMA has also complained to governments about clauses in their law that require assessment of socio-economic impacts of GMOs, saying that assessment and approvals should be based solely on hard science, which is also often influenced or financed by the industry.

African civil society and smallholders’ organisations are fighting for the kind of biosafety legislation that will safeguard health and environment against the potential risks of GMOs, not the kind that promotes the introduction of this wholly inappropriate technology.

About 80 percent of Africa’s food is produced by smallholders, who seldom farm on more than five hectares of land and usually on much less.  The majority of these farmers are women, who have scant access to finance or secure land tenure.

That they still manage to provide the lion’s share of the continents’ food, usually without formal seed, chemicals, mechanisation, irrigation or subsidies, is testament to their resilience and innovation.

African farmers have a lot to lose from the introduction of GMOs – the rich diversity of African agriculture, its robust resilience and the social cohesion engendered through cultures of sharing and collective effort could be replaced by a handful of monotonous commodity crops owned by foreign masters. 

There is no doubt that African small-scale producers need much greater support in their efforts, but GM seeds which are designed for large-scale industrial production have no place in smallholder systems.

The mantra that GMOs are necessary for food security is hijacking the policy space that should be providing appropriate solutions for the poorest farmers.

Only a tiny fraction of farmers will ever afford the elite GM technology package – for example in South Africa, where over 85 percent of maize production is genetically modified, GM maize seed costs 2-5 times more than conventional seed, must be bought annually and requires the extensive use of toxic and expensive chemicals and fertilisers.

What is more, despite 16 years of cultivating GM maize, soya and cotton, South Africa’s food security continues to decline, with some 46 percent of the population categorised as food insecure.

It may be tempting to believe that hunger can be solved with technology, but African social movements have pointed out that skewed power relations – such as unfair trade agreements and subsidies that perennially entrench poverty, or the patenting of seed and imposition of expensive and patented technology onto the world’s most vulnerable and risk averse communities – are the bedrock of hunger in Africa.

Without changing these fundamental power relationships and handing control over food production to smallholders in Africa, hunger cannot be eradicated.

A global movement is growing and demanding that governments support small-scale food producers and “agro-ecology” instead of corporate agriculture, an agricultural system that is based on collaboration with nature and is appropriate for small-scale production, where producers are free to plant and exchange seeds and operate in strong local markets.

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

This opinion piece was originally published by Common Dreams.

Excerpt:

For Cherie Blair (left), founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, “empowering women and girls to access education isn’t an option, isn’t a nice thing to do, it’s an imperative”. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Feb 26 2015 (IPS)

Providing women with greater access to mobile technology could increase literacy, advance development and open up much-needed educational and employment opportunities, according to experts at the fourth United Nations’ Mobile Learning Week conference here.

“Mobile technology can offer learning where there are no books, no classrooms, even no teachers. This is especially important for women and girls who drop out of school and need second chances,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women.

The agency, which focuses on gender equality and the empowerment of women, joined forces with its “sister” organisation, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to host the Feb. 23-27 conference this year.“Mobile technology can offer learning where there are no books, no classrooms, even no teachers. This is especially important for women and girls who drop out of school and need second chances” – Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women

The aim, UNESCO said, was to give participants a venue “to learn about and discuss technology programmes, initiatives and content that are alleviating gender deficits in education.”

Participants from more than 70 countries shared so-called best practices and presented a range of initiatives to address the issue, including reducing the costs of access to mobile services in some developing countries, and providing training and free laptops to women teachers in countries such as Israel.

“There is still a persistent gender gap in access to mobile technology,” said keynote speaker Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In an interview on the side-lines of the conference, she told IPS that “anything that encourages the education of girls is important” and that it was “particularly significant” that UNESCO and UN Women had joined forces to work together in this area to achieve results.

“We need to encourage women to use technology and we also need to involve men to provide support,” Blair said. She cited research showing that a woman in a low- or middle-income country is 21 percent less likely than a man to own a mobile phone. In Africa, the figure is 23 percent less likely, and in the Middle East and South Asia 24 percent and 37 percent respectively.

“The reasons women cite for not owning a mobile phone include the costs of handsets and data plans, lack of need and fear of not being able to master the technology,” Blair said.

Yet, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), mobile phones are the “most pervasive and rapidly adopted technology in history”, with six billion of the world’s seven billion people now having access.

If there existed gender parity in this access, women could benefit from the technology in a number of ways, including getting information about healthcare and other services, experts said.

They could also potentially follow massive open online courses (MOOCS) such as those offered by an increasing number of universities and other institutions, despite on-going controversy about their benefits. Currently, the majority of students enrolled in MOOCs are men, and often from wealthy backgrounds, surveys suggest.

Whether women live in low-income or rich countries, learning how to use technology could have future benefits especially regarding employment, said Mark West, a UNESCO project officer.

“Ninety percent of jobs in the future are going to require ICT skills,” he told IPS in an interview. “So any idea that it’s not socially or culturally acceptable for women to use technology is extremely dangerous.”

He said the fact that 25 percent fewer women than men currently access the Internet “was alarming” and that changes needed to occur early in education so that girls were not left out of future jobs.

“We don’t often realise how gendered our perceptions of technology are,” he added. “Women are taught from a young age to not like technology, taught that maths and science are not for them, and this is a big problem.”

At university level, only about 20 percent of female students are pursuing careers in computer science, and in the technology sector, only six percent of CEOs are women, according to the ITU.

“We should do more to get women in STEM fields,” said Doreen Bogdan, ITU’s Chief of Strategic Planning and Membership Department, referring to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Some participants highlighted current programmes to keep girls interested in science, such as camps run by the California-based semiconductor company Qualcomm, which brings sixth-grade female students together to learn coding and tech skills, and does follow-up work with them as they continue their education.

“All of the tech companies are fighting for the same talent pool and there are not enough females in that talent pool because not enough girls are studying it,” said Angela Baker, a senior manager at Qualcomm.

“There’s a ton of research that shows that when you have more women in the industry, companies tend to do better … so we have a vested interest in building that pipeline of girls and women,” she told IPS.

Apart from the STEM fields, girls have made great strides in education over the past 30 years, but there is “still a long way to go,” said experts, who cited U.N. figures showing that globally there are seven girls to every 10 boys in school.

Both UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and Cherie Blair described education as a “human rights imperative” as well as a development and security imperative.

They stressed that the goal of achieving gender equality in education will continue for the post-2015 development agenda, and that technology has an important role to play.

“Empowering women and girls to access education isn’t an option, isn’t a nice thing to do, it’s an imperative,” Blair said.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Climate change and variability demands new varieties of beans. A Massive Participatory Assessment in Yojoa Lake in Honduras led by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) work together with local NGOs and farmers to make group observations and share their results with their neighbors. Credit: J.L.Urrea (CCAFS)

By Andy Jarvis
LIMA, Dec 13 2014 (IPS)

The digital revolution that is continuing to develop at lightening speed is an exciting new ally in our fight for global food security in the face of climate change.

Researchers have spent decades collecting data on climate patterns, but only in recent years have cost-effective solutions for publicly hosting this information been developed. Cloud computing services make the ideal home for key climate data – given that they have a vast capacity for not only storing data, but analysing it as well.Gone are the days when farmers could rely on almanacs for predicting seasonal planting dates, as climate change has made these predictions unreliable.

This rationale is the basis for a brand new partnership between CGIAR, a consortium of international research centres, and Amazon web services. With 40 years of research under its belt, CGIAR holds a wealth of information on not just climate patterns, but on all aspects of agriculture.

By making this data publically available on the Amazon cloud, researchers and developers will be empowered to come up with innovations to solve critical issues inextricably linked to food and farming, such as reducing rural poverty, improving human health and nutrition, and sustainably managing the Earth’s natural resources.

The first datasets to move to the cloud are Global Circulation Models (GCM), presently the most important tool for representing future climate conditions.

The potential of this new partnership was put to the test this week at the climate negotiations in Peru, when the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) hosted a 24 hour “hackathon”, giving Latin American developers and computer programmers first access to the cloud-based data.

The challenge was to transform the available data into actionable knowledge that will help farmers better adapt to climate variability.

The results were inspiring. The winning innovation from Colombian team Geomelodicos helps farmers more accurately predict when to plant their crops each season. Gone are the days when farmers could rely on almanacs for predicting seasonal planting dates, as climate change has made these predictions unreliable.

The prototype programme combines data on historical production and climate trends, historical planting dates with current climate trends and short-term weather forecasts, to generate more accurate information about optimal planting dates for different crops and locations. The vision is that one day, this information could bedisseminated via SMS messaging.

Runners up Viasoluciones decided to tackle water scarcity, a serious challenge for farmers around the world as natural resources become more scarce. Named after the Quechua goddess of water, Illapa, the innovation could help farmers make better decisions about how much water to use for irrigating different crops.

The prototype application combines climate data and information from a tool that directly senses a plant’s water use, to calculate water needs in real-time. In times of drought, this application could prove invaluable.

Farmers are in dire need of practical solutions that will help protect our food supply in the face of a warming world. Eight hundred million people in the world are still hungry, and it is a race against time to ensure that we have a robust strategy for ensuring these vulnerable people are fed and nourished.

By moving agricultural data to the cloud, developing innovations for food and farming will no longer be dependent on having access to expensive software or powerful computers on internet connection speeds.

Making sense of this “big data” will become progressively easier, and one day, farmers themselves could even take matters into their own hands.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Peruvian peasant women working on the family plot of land near the village of Padre Rumi in the Andean department of Huancavelica. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ROME, Oct 19 2014 (IPS)

Family farms have been contributing to food security and nutrition for centuries, if not millennia. But with changing demand for food as well as increasingly scarce natural resources and growing demographic pressures, family farms will need to innovate rapidly to thrive.

Meanwhile, sustainable rural development depends crucially on the viability and success of family farming. With family farms declining in size by ownership and often in operation as well, improving living standards in the countryside has become increasingly difficult over the decades.They are the stewards of the world’s agricultural resources and the source of more than four-fifths of the world’s food supply, but many are poor and food-insecure themselves.

Agricultural land use is increasingly constrained by the availability of arable land for cultivation as other land use demands increase. Addressing sustainable rural development involves economic and social considerations as well as ecological and resource constraints.

More than half a billion family farms worldwide form the backbone of agriculture in most countries. Although family farms account for more than nine out of 10 farms in the world, they have considerably less farm land. They are the stewards of the world’s agricultural resources and the source of more than four-fifths of the world’s food supply, but many are poor and food-insecure themselves.

Innovation challenge

Family farms are very diverse, and innovation systems must take this diversity into account. While some large farms are run as family operations, the main challenge for innovation is to reach smallholder family farms. Innovation strategies must, of course, consider family farms’ agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions.

Public efforts to promote agricultural innovation for small and medium-sized family farms should ensure that agricultural research, advisory services, market institutions and infrastructure are inclusive. Applied agricultural research for crops, livestock species and management practices should consider the challenges faced by family farms. A supportive environment for producer and other rural community-based organisations can thus help promote innovation.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The challenges facing agriculture and the institutional environment for agricultural innovation are more complex than ever. Effective innovation systems and initiatives must recognise and address this complexity. Agricultural innovation strategies should focus not only on increasing yields and net real incomes, but also on conserving natural resources, and other objectives.

An innovation system must consider all stakeholders. Therefore, it must take account of the complex contemporary policy and institutional environment for agriculture and the range of stakeholders engaged in decision-making, often with conflicting interests and priorities, thus requiring appropriate government involvement.

Public investments in agricultural R&D as well as extension and advisory services should be increased to emphasise sustainable intensification, raising yields and closing labour productivity gaps. Agricultural research and advisory services should therefore seek to raise productivity, improve sustainability, lower food prices, reduce poverty, etc.

R&D should focus on sustainable intensification, continuing to expand the production frontier in sustainable ways, working systemically and incorporating both traditional and other informal knowledge. Extension and advisory services should focus on closing yield gaps and raising the labour productivity of small and medium-sized farmers.

Partnering with producer organisations can help ensure that R&D and extension services are both inclusive and responsive to farmers’ needs.

Institutional innovation

All family farmers need an enabling environment for innovation, including developmental governance, growth-oriented macroeconomic conditions, legal and regulatory regimes favourable to family farms, affordable risk management tools and improved market infrastructure.

Improved access to local or wider markets for inputs and outputs, including through government procurement from family farmers, can provide strong incentives for innovation, but farmers in remote areas and other marginalised groups often face formidable barriers.

In addition, sustainable agricultural practices often have high start-up costs and long pay-off periods. Hence, farmers need appropriate incentives to provide needed environmental services. Effective local institutions, including farmer organisations, combined with social protection programmes, can help overcome these barriers.

The capacity to innovate in family farming must be supported at various levels and in different spheres. Individual innovation capacity and capabilities must be developed through education, training and extension. Incentives can create the needed networks and linkages to enable farmers, researchers and others to share information and to work towards common objectives.

Effective and inclusive producer organisations, such as cooperatives, can be crucial in supporting innovation by their members. Producer organistions can help their members better access markets and innovate and also ensure a voice for family farms in policy-making.

Innovation is not merely technical or economic, but often requires institutional, systemic and social dimensions as well. Such a holistic view of and approach to innovation can be crucial to inclusion, efficacy and success.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released The State of Food and Agriculture: Innovation in Family Farming on Oct. 16.

Excerpt:

Kenneth Kerr, climate meteorologist at the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service, explains how computer modeling is used to provide agrometeorology services to farmers. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PARAMARIBO, Suriname, Oct 15 2014 (IPS)

Farmers in the Caribbean are being encouraged to make more use of farm apps and other forms of ICT in an effort to increase the knowledge available for making sound, profitable farming decisions.

Peter Thompson of Jamaica’s Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) said Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is being increasingly used to track “localised conditions, pests and disease prevalence. The technology will not only add value to us but to the farmers in giving information that they need.”“The application of these technologies in agriculture pull in young people. If you focus on traditional means, chances are agriculture will die a natural death." -- Peter Thompson

Thompson spoke to IPS at the recently concluded Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA), held Oct. 6-12 in Paramaribo, Suriname.

A great deal of attention was given to “scaling up” the integration of technology into day-to-day farming practices at CWA 2014, co-sponsored by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).

The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, showcased apps that students in the Department of Computing and Information Technology had developed as part of the AgriNeTT project, a collaborative effort between the Department, the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, and farmers’ representatives.

AgriNeTT’s project leader/coordinator, Dr. Margaret Bernard, said “the main focus…is developing intelligent systems within agriculture. There is a lack of data [and] many of the models being built did not have real data from the field.”

The apps are intended to support agriculture, she told IPS. “A big part of the AgriNeTT project is the development of an Open Data repository, particularly to house agriculture data on a national level… The repository will house different data sets, including farm level production data, commodity prices and volumes, farm land spatial data, soils, weather, and pest and diseases tracking data.”

Dr. Bernard said the aim of the Open Data repository was to build a platform that would be accessible throughout the Caribbean. The project seeks to encourage all in the Caribbean farming community to share in uploading data so that “developer teams can use that data creatively and build apps [for agriculture].”

She added that the creation of apps and tools based on the data would help to modernise Caribbean agriculture. “The collection, aggregation, analysis, visualisation and dissemination of data are key to Caribbean competitiveness,” Dr. Bernard said.

Dr. Bernard holds high hopes for a new app, called AgriExpenseTT, which her team developed for farm record-keeping. The app, now available for download at Google Play, allows farmers to track expenses of more than one crop at a time, track purchases of agricultural products they use on their farms, as well as track how much of the products purchased are actually used for each crop.

She said farmers who opted for the subscription service for this app would then have their data stored which would allow researchers “to verify some of the models for cost production, so we know this is what it costs to produce X amount of [any crop].”

Another reason for encouraging the use of ICT in agriculture is the need to make farming a more attractive career option for young people, CTA’s Director Michael Hailu explained. He said an important dimension to family farming, the theme of this year’s CWA, was the significant role that young people should and could play in the development of the region’s agriculture.

Since the region’s farming population is aging, “we at CTA are making a special effort to encourage young people to engage in agriculture—in ways that they can relate to, using new technologies that are far removed from the old image of farming,” he said.

To this end, CTA offered a prize to young app developers in the region who would develop innovative ICT applications to address key Caribbean agricultural challenges and foster agri-enterprise among young people.

Winners of this year’s AgriHack Talent competition, at the Caribbean Week of Agriculture 2014. The winners designed apps to be used by farmers. Photo Courtesy of CTA

Many of the apps developed for the CWA 2014 AgriHack Talent competition focused on providing farmers with useful information that is not always readily available.

Jason Scott, part of the Jamaican team that won the agricultural hackathon with their app named Node 420, said, “Collecting the information they need can be a real problem for farmers.” He said he and his colleague Orane Edwards “decided to design some hardware that could gather all sorts of data to help them with their cultivation, including planting, sowing and harvesting.”

RADA’s Thompson said, “The application of these technologies in agriculture pull in young people. If you focus on traditional means, chances are agriculture will die a natural death…We have these young guys coming in who are just hungry to do things in terms of technology. We have to help them.”

However, Faumuina Tatunai, a media specialist who works with Women and Business Development, an NGO that supports 600 farmers in Samoa, told IPS that excessive focus on attracting youth to farming through ICT may be short-sighted.

“The reality of farming is that we need young people on the farms as part of the family. To do that we need to attract them in quite holistic ways…and ICT is just part of the solution but it is not the only solution.”

She said her organisation seeks to encourage interest in farming among youth by taking a family-centred approach and encouraging all members of the family to learn about agriculture and grow together as farmers through the use of training and other opportunities.

“Everyone in the family is a farmer, whether they are six or 70 years old…our approach is to build capacity with mother, father, and child,” Tatunai said.

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at jwl_42@yahoo.com

By Carlos M. Correa
GENEVA, Sep 29 2014 (IPS)

The steady increase in patent applications and grants that is taking place in developed and some developing countries (notably in China) is sometimes hailed as evidence of the strength of global innovation and of the role of the patent system in encouraging it. 

Carlos M. Correa

However, such an increase does not correspond to a genuine rise in innovation. It points instead to a major deviation of the patent system away from its intended objective: to reward those who contribute to technological progress by creating new and inventive products and processes.

The increase in the number of patents reflects, to a large extent, the low requirements of patentability applied by patent offices and courts. Patents granted despite the absence of a genuine invention detract knowledge from the public domain and can unduly restrain legitimate competition.

Low standards of patentability encourage a large number of applications that would not otherwise be made, leading to a world backlog estimated at over 10 million unexaminedpatents.

This problem affects various sectors. For instance, Nokia is reported to hold around 30,000 patents relating to mobile phones, a large part of which are likely to be invalid, while Samsung holds more than 31,000 patent families. A study covering various fields of clean energy technologies, including solar photovoltaic, geothermal, wind and carbon capture, found nearly 400,000 patent documents.“The steady increase in patent applications and grants … does not correspond to a genuine rise in innovation. It points instead to a major deviation of the patent system away from its intended objective: to reward those who contribute to technological progress by creating new and inventive products and processes”

The proliferation of patents is particularly high and problematic in the pharmaceutical sector, where large companies actively seek to acquire broad portfolios of patents in order to extend patent protection beyond the expiry of the original patents on new compounds. These ever-greening strategies allow them to keep generic producers out of the market and charge prices higher than those that would otherwise exist in a competitive scenario.

For example, the basic patent for paroxetine, an antidepressant, expired in the late 1990s, whereas ‘secondary’ patents will extend up to 2018.

Ever-greening strategies by one company often force others to follow the same pattern as a defensive approach.  The proliferation of ‘secondary’ or ‘spurious’ patents can impose significant costs on patients and public health systems.

Several measures can be applied at the national level to avoid the proliferation of patents on trivial developments in full consistency with the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), because they fall within the policy space that World Trade Organisation (WTO) members have retained to design and apply their patent laws.

The most important policy that governments may implement is the rigorous application of the requirements of patentability, based on a thorough examination of patent applications. The TRIPS agreement neither defines the concept of ‘invention’ nor how such requirements need to be interpreted.

Thus, national laws may differentiate inventions and discoveries, and require that the former result from an inventive activity, thereby excluding pre-existing subject matter that is merely found, such as natural substances.

While some patent offices grant patents on the basis of legal fictions on novelty, there is no reason to follow such practices in other jurisdictions.

An example of this practice by some patent offices is to admit what are known as ‘selection patents’, whereby one of more items that were previously disclosed are independently claimed. This type of patents provide an effective means of ever-greening, because protection can be extended for the full length of a new patent, i.e. normally twenty additional years, despite the fact that novelty was actually lost when such items were first disclosed.

While some large patent offices, such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office and the Chinese Patent Office, seem to apply a lax inventive step standard thereby allowing for the granting of a large number of ‘low quality’ patents, there are strong public interest arguments to follow a different approach, particularly in developing countries.

A strict application of the industrial applicability/usefulness requirement, when provided for by the national law, may also contribute to prevent the grant of unwarranted patent rights.

This is the case, in particular, for claims on new medical uses, which are equivalent to claims over methods of treatment that have no industrial application or technical effect. The lack of industrial applicability may be a sufficient ground to reject such claims.

Given the policy space left by the TRIPS agreement to adopt their own definitions of the patentability standards, and to do so consistently with their legal systems and practices, governments can follow different methods to ensure that patents are granted only when there are sufficient merits under the applicable law.

Governments may introduce specific standards in the patent laws themselves. A notable case is the Indian Patent Act, as amended in 2005, which incorporated in section 3(d) specific standards to assess patent applications in the field of chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

In a case brought by Novartis (a Swiss pharmaceutical company) against the rejection of its patent application relating to a beta crystalline form of imatinib mesylate, the Indian Supreme Court held that the claimed invention failed in both the tests of invention and patentability.

The definition of the standards of patentability can also be made through regulations, including patent offices’ guidelines. A good example is provided by the guidelines on the patentability of pharmaceutical products and processes adopted by the Argentine government in 2012 to limit the ever-greening of pharmaceutical patents.

Finally, it is worth noting that in applying patentability standards, patent offices can differentiate, in line with the TRIPS agreement, among fields of technology in order to take into account particular features of specific sectors and public policies objectives, for instance in relation to the promotion of generic drugs.

Measures to accommodate these differences constitute a necessary response to the diversity of technologies and, consequently, a condition sine qua non for an intrinsically balanced system of protection that remains neutral in its effects on competition. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

This column is taken from the author’s research paper on ‘Tackling the Proliferation of Patents: How to Avoid Undue Limitations to Competition and the Public Domain’, published by the South Centre (http://www.southcentre.int/research-paper-52-august-2014/).

Excerpt:

A teenage girl surfs the internet at a resource centre in Nairobi. Credit: David Njagi/IPS

By Julia Hotz
WASHINGTON, Jul 16 2014 (IPS)

“My cousin was a very successful and distinguished student. She said that she finished high school with excellent grades and enrolled in college, but a month later, her parents forced her to leave school and burned all her books and studying material. So, the girl set fire to herself.”

As gruesome as this particular story’s outcome may be, such a narrative – in which a female student pursues education and subsequently faces generational resistance – is common in the anonymous storyteller’s home of Iraq.The Middle East and North Africa lead the world in both their population of active Twitter users and number of registered YouTube accounts.

Yet thanks to the digital STOP-GBV (gender-based violence) campaign launched by AMAR U.S., an international peace-building non-profit, women who witness or experience human rights violations such as this one are now able to share their stories via social media platforms.

Christopher Kyriacou, the chief executive officer of AMAR U.S, says that social media has allowed his group’s women’s rights initiative to “blossom”, such as through the remarkable youth participation in AMAR’s Facebook pages.

“Many students undertake the responsibility of searching and investigating cases of gender-based violence and discrimination, and select the topics to be discussed during the lectures,” Kyriacou said, citing the testimony of a STOP-GBV project manager.

He adds that the Facebook pages allow students to “publish articles and pictures related to the issue [of Gender-Based Violence]…and participate in the dissemination of these subjects.”

AMAR’s digital dialogue represents just one instance of how technology’s presence has expanded in the world’s historically voiceless regions.

According to a 2013 Infographic collected by Squared Online, a UK-based digital marketing initiative, the number of social media users in the Middle East and North Africa is projected to increase 191 percent from 2011 to 2017. The study also notes how the Middle East and North Africa lead the world in both their population of active Twitter users and number of registered YouTube accounts.

It is this trend that has prompted many international development organisations to harness the rise of technology and social media in their respective education, public health and human rights initiatives.

Given that the theme of this year’s recently-celebrated World Population Day is to “’invest in the youth,” the international community has increasingly recognised the importance of using innovative digital techniques to engage the world’s enormous cohort of 15-to-35 year-olds – the largest ever- in their democracy-oriented agenda.

Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N.’s Population Fund (UNFPA), said in a statement that if young citizens are “skilled and informed”, then they can “contribute more fully to their communities and nations.”

With this goal in mind, he is enthusiastic about the potential of technology to help provide young people with a voice, calling it “unethical” for such a large youth population to be neglected in the democratic process.

“We believe the possibilities with technology are enormous, and thus we see an urgent need to work with those in technology,” UNFPA’s Osotimehin told IPS. “We see people in international communities who have not yet been to school, but are carrying around smart phones … In 1999, Nigeria had only 400,000 landlines, whereas today there are more than 100 million cell phones.”

In order to unite this global tech explosion with its focus on youth, the UNFPA has launched a “selfie campaign”, in which young people from around the world can submit self-taken photographs of themselves to social media platforms using the tag #WPD2014.

The symbolic meaning behind this digital petition, which is scheduled to run through September, is to give young people a central role in crafting the United Nations’ post-2015 global development agenda.

“When you are isolated from global meetings like the U.N. General Assemblies to which your governments go to as member states … your selfies are saying you want to be in the picture of future development frameworks,” Laurent Zessler, a UNFPA representative, said as she premiered the campaign to youths in Fiji.

In addition to providing a medium for youths to share their stories and advocate for a role in future U.N. decision-making, technology has also facilitated the faster and more widespread transmission of practical information to youths.

A prime example of this strategy is the Text to Change (TTC) campaign, which is described as a social enterprise that “sends and receives information via mobile telephony in emerging countries.”

Josette de Vroeg, communications manager of the Netherlands-based campaign, said TTC was conceived on the premise that “every citizen in this world should have access to information, no matter if you’re rich or poor.

“We send participants the right personalised message at the right time, providing them with crucial information at the moment when they need it most,” de Vroeg told IPS. “The main objective is reducing infant and maternal mortality.”

Noting how TTC has been particularly effective in providing important health information to young pregnant women in Tanzania, de Vroeg concluded that, with the help of partners such as the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Tanzania Ministry of Health, more than 30 million free text messages have been sent out and 500,000 women have participated.

With the initiative’s presence now in 16 countries, de Vroeg added that TTC is currently running “the biggest interactive SMS campaign ever.”

“Over 80 percent of the African people now have access to a mobile phone. That’s why this is the most important medium for making a connection,” de Vroeg told IPS. “TTC connects organisations with their hard-to-reach target group, via mobile.”

Asked about how the campaign’s target populations have reacted to such an innovative technique, de Vroeg said that the feedback has been nothing but positive, with TTC’s beneficiaries saying that the text messages have helped them run businesses, learn about HIV, and improve their self-esteem.

Moselyn Muchena, one of the girls being given a chance under the TechWomen initiative. Credit: Mary Kashumba/IPS

By Mary Kashumba
HARARE, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

For 22-year-old Moselyn Muchena, a final year computer science student at the University of Zimbabwe, it seemed obvious to create a mobile application offering easy access to services in the local catering industry, largely because of the huge number of female entrepreneurs in that sector.

“The kinds of problems these women are going through inspired me to come up with an innovative application for the industry called ORDER NOW, through which they can [post] their menus and specials, as well as their location and the prices of items.

“The application is also interactive, allowing customers to share [their reviews] on other social networks platforms … and it offers a platform for feedback, which is vital for businesses,” Muchena told IPS. The app also allows for advertising.“We want to tap into the creative and innovative base of 52 percent of the population. Imagine what the world has lost in innovation due to the lack of or fewer women in these creative spaces” – TechWomen Zimbabwe

“I am grateful to get this opportunity to create a culinary application that can be used by restaurants, where mostly women dominate the field,” she said, adding that she hoped her app will have a global reach.

According to Farai Mutambanengwe, president of the Small to Medium Scale Enterprises Association of Zimbabwe, women dominate the catering industry in Zimbabwe. He told IPS that while the association had no actual analysis “on the number of women who are in the culinary industry compared with men, generally women continue to grow in dominating this field.”

Muchena sees herself as paving the way for other girls to enter the fields of science and technology. “Being the only girl doing computer science in my class, I used to feel like an outcast and it took me time to blend in to become part of the class and not ‘the woman’ in the class. I said to myself I would also pave the way for young girls who aspire to have a career in technological innovations.”

The young innovator is just one of over 100 girls and women aged between 10 and 23 who are creating innovative technologies to address community problems in Zimbabwe. They are part of a U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs initiative called TechWomen, a programme designed to empower, connect and support the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Referring to her own experience in developing her software, Muchena pointed out that there was an urgent need for investors in the field of science. “Our plight as young science entrepreneurs is that there are no investors willing to engage youths who are coming up with innovations.” However, lack of investment in the science sector has dwindled as a result of a restrictive economy.

According to a 2008 report in the Economic Reform Feature Service  of the Centre for International Enterprise (CIPE), “the education system in Zimbabwe has long suffered from an insufficient focus on teaching practical skills, limited access to higher education opportunities, and unequal access for girls to specialised fields such as science.”

“Successful educational reform is a necessary step to create the basis for sustained economic growth and requires the involvement of all stakeholders, ranging from families and civil society into national and local governments as well as the private sector,” said the report.

National Zimbabwean statistics for 2012 show that the number of women who enrolled in faculties of engineering, computer science and science technology at university level were 17 percent, 35 percent and 22 percent respectively in 2009. A year later, women’s enrolment in these faculties were 17. 5 percent, 39 percent and 18 percent respectively.

Chemical technologist Aretha Mare, one of the members of TechWomen Zimbabwe, founded by five Zimbabwean women who graduated from the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen initiative, told IPS that its vision is to see gender parity, or 50 percent representation of women in all STEM professions.

“We want to tap into the creative and innovative base of 52 percent of the population,” says TechWomen Zimbabwe. “Imagine what the world has lost in innovation due to the lack of or fewer women in these creative spaces.”

Mare said that under the TechWomen initiative, “the women act as role models, mentors and teachers, creating a networking platform and peer-to-peer interaction with sharing of knowledge to keep them motivated and sharing of opportunities, thus avoiding the leaky pipe where a few women who pursue STEM careers also switch careers or leave due to frustrations in the workplace.”

According to Mare, “the girls’ programme aims to expose girls to STEM fields through experiential learning, where they identify problems, use STEM to solve them, recalibrate and ideate again. We try to do it in hands on, fun and engaging way.”

“We believe we are causing a revolution, transitioning Zimbabwe into a tech power house through girls and women as we target girls from marginalised backgrounds (both in school and out of school), some of them with no prior computer experience and most with limited access to technology. So far we have trained over 100 girls,” she added.

Meanwhile, under its Strategic Plan (2011-2015), Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in partnership with the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has embarked on a massive programme to revive science teaching in the country. The programme is being funded through the Education Development Fund (EDF), a multi-donor funding mechanism.

The programme has already distributed 2,449 sciences kits and is currently working on the re-training of more than 5,000 science teachers from the 2,336 secondary schools in the country on the safe use and maintenance of the equipment in the kits.

For Muchena, it all comes down to convincing parents and the government to strive to ensure that talent is given a chance. “I encourage parents and the authorities to understand that sometimes it is not about the academic aspects but about realising a child’s ability and nurturing it into something big.”

New studies argue that mobile technologies can be more effective than microcredit in promoting entrepreneurship and fighting poverty in developing countries, like Mauritania. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Farangis Abdurazokzoda
WASHINGTON , May 31 2014 (IPS)

Mobile-finance and direct cash grants are revolutionary tools that can substitute for under-developed financial sectors and help reduce poverty and promote entrepreneurship in developing countries, according to researchers here.

Rodger Voorhies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Christopher Blattman, a Columbia University political scientist, say these two potentially empowering mechanisms can help global efforts to provide needed assistance to vulnerable and poor populations.

In a teleconference hosted by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), one of the country’s most influential think tanks, the two men argued that mobile technologies can help poor people in developing countries manage their personal finances, including savings, insurance, credit, and cash transfers that many in the developed world take for granted.

Mobile technologies can help fill the gap by providing easy and free access to financial tools, according to an article published in CFR’s journal, ‘Foreign Affairs’, co-written by Voorhies and Jake Kendall, who also works at the Gates Foundation.

The article, ‘The Mobile Finance Revolution’, cites World Bank statistics showing that, on average, nearly nine out of every ten people living in a developing country have a cell-phone account, although some users may, of course, have multiple accounts.

Mobile technologies are more effective than much-lauded microcredit programmes in promoting entrepreneurship and fighting poverty, according to the article.

Among other advantages, they eliminate the bureaucracy and routine banking costs associated with in-person and cash transactions. In addition, mobile-finance clients generate data that can be further used by banks and investors as an alternative for the traditional credit scores, according to Voorhies and Kendall.

In a second article titled ‘Show Them the Money’, Blattman and Paul Niehaus, who teaches economics at the University of California San Diego, detail recent studies that show the effectiveness of cash grants and outline the comparative disadvantages of microloans and related programmes, such as donating money to buy cows, goats, seeds, beans, tools, and other agricultural inputs, as well as schoolbooks and clothing for poor families.

Not everybody wants a cow

Despite the fact that the microcredit movement brought significant positive results – recognised in 2006 when the Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were awarded with a Nobel Peace Prize – a series of more recent studies on the effects of microloans have put their success into question, according to Blattman and Niehaus.

In one study, the economist Abhijit Banerjee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a number of collaborators examined the case of the Indian non-profit Spandana that provided 250 dollar loans to women in Hyderabad at low-interest rates. Over three years, they found no measurable improvements in the education, health, poverty, or women’s empowerment among the recipients.

After collecting an additional 20 years of data on Spandana’s lending and their borrowers, Banerjee found “no evidence of large sustained consumption or income gains as a result of access to microcredit.”

As for the effectiveness of training programmes, economists David McKenzie and Christopher Woodruff reviewed the outcomes of the International Labour Organisation’s ‘Start and Improve your Business Programme’ that has provided training to over 4.5 million people in over 100 countries since 1977. They found that there was little lasting effect on the sales or profits of the business owners in the recipient countries.

“No wonder people in developing countries, when given the choice, don’t necessarily choose to invest in skills training,” write Blattman and Niehaus.

The two authors argue that providing cash grants to poor people directly is also preferable to supplying goods that will presumably be used by recipients to increase their income or skills.

They argue that poor people in developing countries often use the cash to buy the same things that aid organisations would provide, such as livestock, tools, or training, in any event, but giving people cash directly provides them with more flexibility.

“Not everyone, after all, wants a cow,” the authors write.

Blattman and Niehaus do not deny the benefits of aid, training programmes, and microloans but insist that significant improvements are possible depending on how the money is allocated.

In a study conducted in Uganda, 250 groups of 15-25 young adults were each given 400 dollars in cash to spend as they wished, so long as the purpose was to enhance their livelihood.

The study found that most of the money was spent on acquiring the physical tools and materials they needed to start working, and only ten percent was used for training. It turned out that over four years, the participants’ incomes rose by an average of 40 percent.

A similar study was conducted in Liberia, where unconditional 200 dollar grants were given to drug addicts and petty criminals. The recipients “did not waste the money,” but used it to fund legitimate enterprises.

“Fears that poor people waste cash are simply not borne out by the available data,” the authors write.

Cash or cell phones?

Blattman and Niehaus outline the benefits of cash transfers over traditional aid programmes. They emphasise the importance of money transfers in places where the population has been hit by unexpected crises – conflicts, natural disasters, or extended periods of political uncertainty.

“Think of Southeast Asia after [the] tsunami or the Middle East flooded with Syrian refugees, where the returns on capital after a recovery period are likely to be unusually high and the challenge of making smart investments without localised knowledge unusually large,” the authors write.

Further, cash transfers are essential to emerging markets that have relatively stable economies but where few firms offer jobs and where most workers, by necessity, are self-employed.

More specifically, the authors suggest that cash transfers better enable entrepreneurs to start businesses in countries where banks and other credit institutions are weak or under-developed.

Just as Blattman and Niehaus argue that cash transfers can be particularly helpful in emergency situations, Kendall and Voorhies insist that cell phones may actually prove more effective.

“A study in Niger by a researcher from Tufts University found that during a drought, allowing people to request emergency government support through their cell phones resulted in better diets for those people, compared with the diets of those who received cash handouts,” according to the authors.

In addition, studies have shown that cell phones encourage financial discipline and savings. In Malawi, for example, farmers were offered an option to have their harvest proceeds directly deposited into savings accounts. Those farmers who chose this option ended up investing 30 percent more in farm inputs and had a 22 percent increase in revenues compared to those who chose not to participate.

But while both articles articulate valid criticisms of how aid and microloan organisations operate, they fail to address important aspects. The most obvious are literacy rates, especially low financial literacy that is often prevalent in developing countries. The issues that need to be considered with mobile-finance are the access of affordable network providers as well as a very basic one – electricity.

Thierry N’Doufou and his team of IT specialists developed a tablet — the Qelasy — specifically for the Ivorian market as they aim to bring local school kids into the digital era. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Marc-Andre Boisvert
ABIDJAN, Apr 15 2014 (IPS)

When Ivorian Thierry N’Doufou saw local school kids suffering under the weight of their backpacks full of textbooks, it sparked an idea of how to close the digital gap where it is the largest — in local schoolrooms.

N’Doufou is one of 10 Ivorian IT specialists who developed the Qelasy — an 8-inch, Ivorian-engineered tablet that is set to be released next month by his technology company Siregex.The parent- and teacher-controlled tablet replaces all textbooks, correspondence books, calculators and the individual chalkboards often used in Ivorian classrooms.

“It is more than me feeling sorry for them. It is also about filling the digital gap between the south and the north, and bringing Ivorian education into the 21st century,” N’Doufou tells IPS.

Qelasy means “classroom” in several African languages, including Akan, Malinke, Lingala and Bamileke.

The Qelasy team began by converting all government-approved Ivorian textbooks into digital format.

“We were obligated to process everything in a way to have quality images for high definition screens. It is a lot of work,” explains N’Doufou, who is CEO of Siregex.

“We also enriched the curriculum with images and videos in way to make the educational experience more convivial.”

A solution to Ivorian problems 

The tablet uses an Android operating system and is resistant to water splashes, dust, humidity and heat.

“The Qelasy is protected against everything that an African pupil without transportation might encounter during their walk home from school,” says N’Doufou.

“We knew we needed our own product … Our clients’ needs are very specific,” he explained.

The parent- and teacher-controlled tablet replaces all textbooks, correspondence books, calculators and the individual chalkboards often used in Ivorian classrooms.

It can also be programmed to allow kids to surf the web or play games according to a pre-defined timetable. Siregex staff have also developed a store where parents and educators can buy over 1,000 elements like apps, educational materials and books.

While the Qelasy is currently focused on education, its marketing director Fabrice Dan tells IPS that users will soon be able to use it for other things. “We believe in technology as a way to create positive changes. And we believe in education. But eventually, we will present solutions in other fields, like agriculture and microcredit,” he says.

Qelasy was launched at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress 2014.  Exactly how much it will sell for has not yet been determined, but it is expected to be priced between 275 and 315 dollars.

That’s a steep price in a country where, according to government figures, only two million of its 23 million people are classified as middle class, earning between two and 20 dollars a day.

The Qelasy — an 8-inch, Ivorian-engineered tablet that is set to be released in May by local technology company Siregex. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

While N’Doufou expects the government to purchase a few tablets for use in schools, this product will mostly benefit the country’s middle and upper classes.

For now, it is only available for the Ivorian market, but the firm is targeting Francophone and Anglophone Africa.

However, the biggest challenge to the success of the product remains the electricity deficit. In a country where, according to the World Bank, only 59 percent of the population has access to electricity, a tablet with an eight-hour battery life faces limited penetration.

But N’Doufou says “There is an 80 percent cellphone penetration rate in Côte d’Ivoire in spite of the low electricity penetration. People find solutions in villages. They will for this too.”

While N’Doufou says “most of the know-how comes from here,” the Qelasy was assembled in the Chinese manufacturing hub of Shenzen, where 10,000 units have been produced.

Other Ivorian Tech Solutions 

The Qelasy is merely the latest in locally-developed technologies designed specifically to answer Ivorian problems.

Last week, young Ivorian programmer Regis Bamba launched an app to record the licence plate numbers and other details of taxis. Taxi Tracker allows a user to send this information about the taxi they are travelling in to selected users who can follow their journey in real time.

It is an attempt to find a way to prevent incidents like the murder of young Ivorian model Awa Fadiga, who was attacked during a taxi ride home in March.

The story of Fadiga’s tragic death gripped the nation as it exposed gaps in the country’s security and healthcare systems. She had been left untreated in a comatose state for more than 12 hours at a local hospital, which allegedly refused to treat her until payment for her care was received.

“It is my reaction to her death. I saw her picture, and I thought that could be my little sister. I told myself that I could not just sit back with my arms crossed,” Bamba tells IPS.

“It is my concrete solution as a citizen until the authorities do something meaningful to protect citizens. So Awa’s death will not be in vain.”

Another application, Mô Ni Bah, was developed by Jean Delmas Ehui in 2013 and allows Ivorians to declare births through SMS.

Trained locals then transfer the information provided in the SMSes to a registration authority. It has been another important invention in a country where the great distance between rural areas and government centres has hindered birth registration. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, almost a third of births are undeclared here.

Bacely Yoro Bi, a technology evangelist, internet strategist and organiser of ConnecTIC — a gathering of Abidjan’s IT enthusiasts — says there is definitively a boom in the local IT business.

“There is a lot happening here in terms of technology, although it is still limited to Abidjan. There are several start-ups that have been created with a local focus,” he tells IPS.

Part of the success, says Yoro Bi, is because of the cooperation among developers.

“Qelasy has been possible because there is a techie community that support each other,” N’Doufou points out.

Yoro Bi says that Côte d’Ivoire’s inventions should be exported to the rest of West Africa and to the world.

With the creation of two free trade zones dedicated to technology in Abidjan’s suburbs, and investments in internet infrastructure, he predicts that inventors like N’Doufou and Bamba now have the potential to go beyond the national borders.

What’s less than two months old, has hit the headlines globally, and has more than 79,000 ‘likes’ and over 16,000 people talking about it?

No, it’s not Prince George Alexander Louis but the precocious SQUAR of Myanmar, the once isolated Southeast Asian nation’s own version of social networking site Facebook.

China has Weibo, the ‘Chinese Facebook’; Indonesia has Zuma; and now Myanmar has jumped on the bandwagon of Asian countries seeking a virtual place to meet, chat and do business, all with a truly local flavour.

What makes SQUAR unusual is that it is the initiative of two outsiders – 37-year-old Rita Nguyen and 28-year-old Quynh Anh Nguyen. Both are techies, born in Vietnam but brought up in the West, and quick to spot the business potential in Myanmar.

Myanmar has undergone a sea-change after the reforms in 2010. Elections have been held, a civilian government has replaced the military regime, the country’s most celebrated ‘prisoner’, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has been released from years of house arrest, and Western sanctions have been lifted.

The government has been opening up the country to foreign investment, and multinationals like General Electric and Coca Cola are rushing in to do business.

SQUAR’s time too had come. Rita, a Canadian citizen, has 15 years of experience in mobile gaming and social networking applications. Anh, her partner in the project, is a business administration graduate who till now had lived mostly in the U.S.

The inspiration came when Rita, a former executive with U.S. gaming company Electronic Arts, moved to Vietnam three years ago to work with the co-founders of VNG, the country’s premier digital platform, and mig33, a popular social network in Asia with over 70 million users in developing markets like Nepal and Bangladesh.

In January, Myanmar capital Yangon hosted BarCamp, the open-house conference of techies from all over the world which was started in the U.S. in 2005 to discuss technology and the Internet.

Though Myanmar, with a population of nearly 60 million, has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates – about one percent – the Yangon meet is said to have been the largest in the world, attracting over 6,000 participants.

Rita attended the Yangon event, her first visit to Myanmar, and found the “perfect storm” for her.

“The timing was perfect as I have been living in Asia for a few years and was looking for a new challenge,” she told IPS.

“I’ve built and launched online communities internationally for almost a decade. Myanmar was an exceptionally cool challenge: how would I build a community in a place that was so disconnected, both from a geographic as well as technological perspective? So I convinced Anh to move back to Asia from Seattle and here we are.”

“Yangon has a lot of youth and they host the largest BarCamp in Asia,” Anh adds. “We thought it would be cool to create something to connect the users and provide them the ability to share information. Myanmar is quite cool right now. Everyone is interested in it.”

After a pre-launch in late June to test the waters, SQUAR is now up and running. What’s more, it has already managed to snag a major corporate sponsor.

In July, Coca Cola returned to Myanmar after a six-decade hiatus and began a promotional blitzkrieg. Along with Facebook, SQUAR too was involved in the online promotion of the ‘Coca Cola Happiness Journey’, accompanied by roadshows in Yangon and Mandalay.
During its pre-launch phase, SQUAR was available only on mobile phones. Now it can be accessed on PCs, Macs and tablets.

Besides being in the Myanmarese language, SQUAR’s unique selling point, according to Rita, is that it is built specifically for the Myanmar market as it is today.

“We are highly focused on an open, public experience that encourages [Myanmarese] nationals to discuss and share information with one another,” she said.

“Facebook specifically is much more of a closed loop community focused more on your personal relationships. In a country like Myanmar, where most of your friends and family are not online yet, Facebook can be a lonely experience. SQUAR is a place to find friends who are already connected.”

One of the most active users is someone by the name of Phyonaing. The new SQUAR user’s first post is a laborious instruction to fellow users on how to use the keyboard to type in the local language.

Besides creating a platform where community meets technology in Myanmar, Rita says SQUAR can be used to boost business.

“SQUAR offers a unique opportunity in Myanmar to connect directly with the youth of the nation,” she says. “This is why our partnership with Coca Cola was so successful. They had traditional media (coverage) but there was no real way to activate the youth directly with real-time contests and promotions.”

That’s something SQUAR was doing daily for Coca Cola, leading up to the Happiness Journey.

Getting funds for the project – 500,000 dollars – was a piece of cake.

“Though not substantial, we did need some start-up capital, specifically because Myanmar is so expensive to operate in,” Rita said. “Raising the funds was incredibly easy through my own established networks. Myanmar is a hot story and there is so much opportunity there; so it wasn’t difficult.”

The major challenge was connectivity. Internet access in Myanmar is limited and the speed slow, prompting Facebook pages like ‘I Hate Myanmar Internet Connection’.

However, with Myanmar due to host the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in 2014, the government is working to improve infrastructure, connectivity and telecom services.

In a landmark move in June, it awarded two new licences to Norway’s Telenor and Qatar’s Ooredoo companies to provide additional mobile phone lines.

These would be a blessing for initiatives like SQUAR.

Describing how they operate, Anh said they have an office in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, where all the developers sit. There is another office in Yangon with six staff members.

The plan now, she says, is to add new features that the community is asking for. “This means creating fun and unique experiences for the SQUAR community through contests, promotions and partnerships.”

Generating revenue is not a priority yet. “At the moment we are only focused on ensuring that we are building the best social experience for [Myanmarese] nationals,” Anh said.

Rita laughed off the question whether they are Myanmar’s Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder. “Oh no, definitely NOT Zuckerberg,” she grinned. “Too hot to wear hoodies here.”

(l – r) Josiah Kavuma, Simon Lubambo, Joshua Businge and Brian Gitta, otherwise known as team Code 8, have developed a mobile phone app to diagnose malaria. Courtesy: Microsoft.

By Amy Fallon
KAMPALA
, Aug 13 2013 (IPS)

In his 21 years Brian Gitta has had malaria too many times to count. And over the years, because of the numerous times he has had to have his blood drawn to test for the disease, he has developed a fear of needles. It is little wonder then that he and three of his fellow computer science students worked hard to develop a mobile phone app that detects malaria – without the use of needles.

“I was two or three years old when I first contracted it,” says Gitta, who is studying computer science at Makerere University in Kampala.

“It’s very unusual to meet people in Uganda who haven’t had malaria. If you go to a clinic, you might find that 90 percent of patients have it.”

Annually an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 Ugandans die from the tropical disease, which is transmitted to humans by mosquitos carrying the malaria parasite. That makes it the country’s biggest killer, according to the NGO Malaria Consortium Uganda. Experts say nearly half (about 42 percent) of Uganda’s 34.5 million people are host to the malaria parasite, although they do not display any signs of being ill.“With this test people may be able to avoid a doctor’s consultation and treat malaria in its early stages before it causes anaemia and brain damage. Once this app comes out, the impact’s going to be great.” -- Moses Kizito, director of SAS Clinic

Gitta’s most recent bout of malaria, just before Christmas in 2012, was severe. He contracted brucellosis, an infectious disease contracted by the consumption of unsterilised milk or meat, and typhoid at the same time and had to be hospitalised for a month.

“I had to undergo lots of blood tests. I was in lots of pain and the doctor’s queue was long,” he says.

Gitta was bedridden during his convalescence, and during that time he had a light bulb moment. He imagined a “mobile medical centre” that offered a quicker and pain-free diagnosis without needles and pricks. Gitta envisaged using a small device for this – but it was a big vision.

But as soon as he recovered he set to work on realising it.

And this July in St Petersburg, Russia, Gitta, Joshua Businge, Simon Lubambo and Josiah Kavuma, known as team Code 8, were announced the winners of the inaugural Women’s Empowerment Award at Microsoft’s global student software competition, Imagine Cup. The all-male group was recognised for their development of an application that they call Matibabu, Swahili for medical centre.

In Uganda, malaria is diagnosed via either the microscopic examination of blood films or a rapid diagnostic test.

The microscopic diagnosis usually takes about 30 minutes or longer and requires a lab technologist. It is considered the “gold standard” of testing, as it is the most reliable method. It reveals the presence or absence of the parasite in the blood, the parasite species and the extent to which they have multiplied in the body.

However, a rapid diagnostic test can be done anywhere and without a qualified microscopist. It usually takes about 15 minutes to get the results, though it cannot show the number of parasites as a microscopic diagnosis does.

Matibabu uses a custom-made portable device called a matiscope, which is connected to a smartphone, to do a rapid diagnostic test. The user’s finger is inserted into the matiscope, and the application uses a red light to penetrate the skin and detect the red blood cells.

“It’s been shown that infected red blood cells have a different physical, chemical and biomedical structure from a normal red blood cell, hence [we] used light-scattering technology to determine the scatter patterns of both normal and infected cells,” Kavuma tells IPS.

“Through the difference in the patterns, the app is able to diagnose for malaria without a blood sample.”

The hardware has a light-emitting diode and a light sensor, and it transmits the test results to the user’s phone for processing.

Matibabu then sends the results to the Microsoft file hosting service, Skydrive, and these can be shared with the patient’s doctor almost immediately, preventing the long delay in getting results.

Code 8 says that Matibabu, which can currently only be used with the Windows phone operating system, will help pregnant women in particular. According to the World Health Organisation, half the world’s population is susceptible to malaria. Pregnant women, young children and people living with HIV/AIDS are especially vulnerable.

“When a pregnant woman gets malaria it affects the baby,” Lubambo tells IPS. “But if it’s able to be detected very early it could reduce miscarriages.”

However, the team hopes to have Android and other OS versions by mid-2014. They say when they begin introducing other versions for different platforms, they may start using file hosting services, like Dropbox, to store the results.

The students hope their device will be on the market within two years and say the application will be free to download. The hardware may cost between 20 and 35 dollars. The young developers concede that this is a lot of money for many Ugandans.

Currently, in Uganda’s private health sector both the microscopic diagnosis and the rapid diagnostic test cost under five dollars, Dr Jane Achan, professor at the department of paediatrics and child health at the Makerere University College of Health Sciences tells IPS.

Malaria affects mostly rural dwellers, she says, adding that in Apach district, northern Uganda, a patient receives over 1,500 infected mosquito bites a year. These people may not have access to smartphones.

“The urban settings are already a little more advantaged in that their health facilities are more accessible, they have more doctors and they have more accessible diagnostic facilities,” Achan explains. “At the end of the day this app has to be compared with what is existing and available.”

Moses Kizito is the director of private SAS Clinic in Kampala, where they test no less than 50 patients a day for malaria and receive eight to 10 positive results.

He says at the moment Matibabu seemed “quite expensive” but in the long run it may prove economical.

“Once people are forced to go to the clinic [with malaria] it’s expensive to manage the disease,” Kizito tells IPS.

“With this test people may be able to avoid a doctor’s consultation and treat malaria in its early stages before it causes anaemia and brain damage. Once this app comes out, the impact’s going to be great.”

Kavuma says that Microsoft has offered the group mentoring and business training, but they are considering other options to market and manufacture the product.

“We are planning on contacting Chinese companies for this,” he says.

Gitta hopes other diseases can be diagnosed in a similar way. “The future is bright and anything can happen…,” he says. “Let’s watch out for the next great thing.”

Technology education programmes are increasingly becoming a viable alternative to the standard four-year undergraduate university programme, according to the OECD, a major international grouping of rich countries.

On Wednesday, the OECD released findings from a new study, recommending implementing industry standards for certificates, which imply the recipient was specifically trained in that field. The study also encourages more CTE programmes, two-year institutions that train for a specific industry, to become accredited so employers can be more assured of their employees’ skills.

“In the 21^st century, a college degree is not an end in itself,” Simon Field, project leader for the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, says. “It is the skill development that is the key to greater individual and national prosperity.”

Between 2000 and 2003, the number of people seeking such professional certificates almost tripled, with the steepest increase coming from the information technology sector. The OECD study predicts that, by 2018, about two-thirds of all job vacancies will require more than a high school diploma, but only a third of vacancies will require a four-year degree or higher.

“The challenge has been that there is a segment of higher education regulations and institutions that look at work-based learning as of lesser importance, while the goal is to see this as an integrated system,” Sandi Vito, a state labour official, said at an event here Wednesday.  “Work-based learning isn’t ‘lesser than’, and it should be combined with academic learning as well.”

According to a 2012 study by the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education, about 65 million people in the United States workforce have an industry certificate or a license to practice. Currently, one in 10 workers reports such a certificate as their highest level of education, according to the OECD study.

“Employers don’t think they have a very receptive audience in the higher education world, and that’s a problem,” Andrew Kelly, the director of the Higher Education Reform programme at the American Enterprise Institute, a consevative think tank, said at Wednesday’s event.  “At a CTE, its pretty clear why you are there: you’re there to get a job.”

In 2010, 1.5 million postsecondary CTE credentials outlining specific skills acquired through CTE programmes were awarded. Half of such credentials given out today are from public two-year schools – as opposed to more traditional four-year colleges or universities – and the rest are from private technical businesses and trade institutions.

“The overarching recommendation from the report is the need for the U.S. to strategically pursue more quality, coherence and transparency in the U.S. postsecondary system,” the study states.

The OECD’s research and recommendations put significant emphasis on a traditional position that has largely fallen by the wayside in the United States: apprenticeships. The study highlights these interim positions as a way to learn necessary skills for a chosen field that might not be taught in a classroom setting.

“Apprenticeships combines work and education simultaneously,” David McCord, the director of the Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee, said on Wednesday, calling the idea of apprenticeships “phenomenal”.

Unlike an internship, an apprenticeship involves some classroom work, usually lasts between four to six weeks, and is paid. In the United States, apprenticeships are most common in the construction and agriculture industry.     

Need for standardisation

Despite the rising evidence of the current and potential benefits of CTE programmes in the United States, the OECD and many education experts agree that much still needs to be improved in this area.

According to Malgorzata Kuczera, the lead author of the new report, it remains difficult for companies to tell a high-quality CTE programme from others.

“If we could strengthen quality overall and ensure even the weakest programmes are of strong quality, this would provide a really robust opportunity for students to invest in their own future,” Kuczera said Wednesday. “It would also offer a robust assurance to employers that students have the necessary skills.”

There are currently about 5,000 certification programmes in the U.S., according to Roy Swift, with the American National Standards Institute, a non-profit group that oversees adherence to certain standards. Of these programmes, only about 10 percent have been accredited to meet national standards, he says.

“We have a problem here [the number of un-accredited CTE programmes] and we need to have people meet national standards,” Swift told IPS. “By doing this, [accrediting the programmes] it will increase the quality of the workforce and employers will be more satisfied with who they are receiving.”

Community colleges and four-year universities, which often do have several CTE programmes, are reportedly reluctant to apply for accreditation.

“Reliance on these standards [for accreditation] is critical to increasing quality and transparency of certificates and certification in the United States, leading to a more qualified American workforce,” Swift says.

Still, advocates are currently optimistic about the future of CTE programmes and the improvements they can bring to the workforce and the economy.

“Accreditation is critical, but the bottom line is getting graduates employed and that they are doing a good job for their employers,” Jay Box, chancellor of the Kentucky community and technical college system, said at Wednesday’s discussion. “What drives us most is our graduate success.”

Women return from fetching water in Malawi. Over 40 percent of all people without improved drinking water live in sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 2 2013 (IPS)

The United Nations apparently lacked the online resources of the fast-growing digital age when it created its highly-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2001, with a targeted deadline of 2015.

But as it readies to formulate its post-2015 economic agenda, the world body says it is one step ahead this time around.One of the failures of the current MDGs is that they were not drafted with sufficient input from the developing world and did not reach out to marginalised groups.

The United Nations is now reaching out to a vibrant online community, dialoguing with governments, civil society, the private sector and think tanks to create a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2015 and beyond.

Olav Kjorven, assistant secretary-general and director of the Bureau for Development Policy at the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), told IPS, “The United Nations has so far engaged more than 200,000 people from 189 countries through a mix of digital media, mobile phone applications, conferences, and paper ballot surveys.”

The “global conversation”, as the U.N. dubs it, is an initiative which was officially launched last month and will continue through the end of 2015.

Kjorven said U.N. teams based in the field are making sure that groups usually absent from participation in global processes – for example, women, indigenous communities, the youth, people with disabilities – are consulted on what they see as priorities for development of their communities.

The eight MDGs included specific targets on poverty alleviation, universal education, gender equality, child and maternal health, HIV/AIDS reduction, environmental stability and a global partnership for development.

The proposed SDGs, which could range anywhere between 10 to 20 or even more, are expected to include sustainable production and consumption, revitalised global governance, protection of the global environment and strengthening of goal-implementation. 

A high-level panel, appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is expected to submit its final report on a post-2015 development agenda when it meets in New York at the end of May.

The panel includes UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

In a report titled “The Global Conversation Begins”, released last month, the United Nations said it has facilitated “an unprecedented series of consultations with people the world over to seek their views on a new development agenda to build on the success of the MDGs.”

The study said that face-to-face meetings have been magnified by an active and growing online community, with people offering their opinions and knowledge, and participating in MY WORLD – the U.N. global survey on priorities for the next development agenda.

Asked to elaborate, Kjorven told IPS that in Peru and Ecuador, the U.N. Country Teams are placing a particular focus on children, young people, women, and grassroots leaders from the Amazon region.

In Colombia, he said, consultations with indigenous organisations have yielded a proposal for five specific goals for the indigenous people of Colombia.

In Uganda, a mobile phone text message campaign has reached 17,000 people who have voiced their opinions on issues that they care about.

“In Nigeria, for example, we will be reaching out to 150,000 people in communities in 32 different states and allow them to join MY WORLD in the format of printed ballots,” he noted.

Asked if the findings give any strong indications as to what the priorities should be in the post-2015 development agenda, Kjorven said there were three emerging priorities.

First, the progress on MDGs should be accelerated and adapted to contemporary challenges, such as growing inequalities within countries and the impact of globalisation.

Second, the consultations point to the need for a universal agenda to address challenges like environmental degradation, unemployment, and violence.

Third, people want to participate, both in the agenda-setting as well as monitoring the progress in implementation of the Post-2015 framework.

Farah Mihlar, conflict prevention coordinator at the London-based Minority Rights Group International (MRG), told IPS that “organisations like MRG have tried to encourage our partners from across the world to participate in these dialogues and consultations, but it is certainly a very limited process”.

She said post-2015 MDGs both target and impact the poorest, most marginalised people, and “unfortunately they are unlikely to have the resources or the know-how to participate in these processes.

“One of the failures of the current MDGs is that they were not drafted with sufficient input from the developing world and did not reach out to marginalised groups such as minority communities,” she noted.

The United Nations should have learnt from these mistakes and rectified the system to be able to include the voices of the poorest and most marginalised peoples, she added.

“For the next set of SDGs to be successful and have an impact they cannot be drafted by elite high-level panels from comfortable conference rooms in capital cities”, she said, but “they must include the voices of the communities and people who the MDGs affect and target.”

It is still not too late, said Mihlar, because many international organisations and U.N. agencies work with partner organisations in developing countries and “there is still time to reach out and include their voices into the decision making process”.

Meanwhile, in a statement released last month, a coalition of activists said civil society organisations are “deeply concerned about the direction the high-level panel may take with regards to the roles of government, business and multilateral institutions in society.”

The eight “red flag” issues raised by civil society include land and water grabs; the extractives development model; a disregard for planetary boundaries; a lack of gender justice; the current global economic and financial architecture; disregard of human rights; conflicts and violence and accountability; and corruption.

“We need to urgently address the ‘poison threads’ in society,” says Amitabh Behar, co-chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

He specifically referred to “corporate land grabs, mega-mines, unjust global trade rules, financial speculation, corruption and the privatisation of essential social services, which are heightening inequalities, ruining our environment and impoverishing communities across the globe.”

“The poison threads in our society often fuel violence and conflict as well,” added Marta Benavides, co-chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and a convener of the Feminist Task Force.

“Greed, struggles for resources and a lack of decent work are behind so many of the world’s wars. No society can develop in an environment of fear and insecurity. Real peace is an essential precondition for development and the high-level panel must address it.”

“I was surprised at how hard it was to learn more English. I had looked for work in a bank, but I would have earned only half what I make here, and I’d have had to work more hours,” said Carlos de León from his cubicle in a call centre, part of a rapidly growing industry in Guatemala.

De León, a 20-year-old university student, works for one of these call centres, which already employ between 16,000 and 18,000 people in this Central American country and are driving technology development, according to the Guatemalan Exporters Association (AGEXPORT).

Guatemala has 75 call centres, although only 15 of them are involved in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). They employ 10,000 young people who are bilingual in English and Spanish, and another 6,000 to 8,000 who speak only Spanish, according to AGEXPORT.

Germán López, of AGEXPORT’s call centre and BPO commission, told IPS that the industry injects some eight million dollars per month into the economy in the form of wages, which vary from 562 to 625 dollars a month on average.

Call centres are a booming activity in Guatemala. Credit: vlima.com/CC BY 2.0

“This goes towards paying for social security, value added tax, supermarket bills, housing, entertainment. And for each of these jobs, four more are created indirectly,” he said.

According to AGEXPORT, call centre revenues amounted to 194.9 million dollars in 2011, 46 percent more than in 2010, while this year a 24 percent increase, to 242 million dollars, is expected.

López said the call centre industry has expanded in Guatemala since 2003, when it began to cater to the U.S. market.

“Our proximity, the competitive prices we can offer the United States, and the compatible time zone are features that make Guatemala an attractive country to the U.S. market,” he said.

Call centres and other forms of BPO in Guatemala offer technical support and problem-solving in different areas, mainly telecommunications, electricity, banking and finance.

The buoyant growth of this industry here, which has attracted capital from India, Canada and the United States, where the largest centres are to be found, is also stimulating the growth of software technologies, web applications and digital development.

“Industries request ever increasing services. As a company, for instance, we have an agreement with another software development firm by which, if they have a client that wants programme development and a contact centre (which manage all client contact through different mediums such as telephone, fax, letter and e-mail), we can offer that,” said López, a manager at the Allied Global call centre.

Furthermore, “as an exporters association, AGEXPORT is looking into the possibility of positioning the country as a provider of technology covering contact centres, software and digital services,” he said.

This impoverished country of 15 million people has made strides towards closing the digital gap. Since 2010, for example, a Technological Campus has operated in the capital city, designed as “a physical space where innovation and technology can find a place to flourish at world-class levels of competitiveness.”

The area, where 100 companies in the information technology sector operate, specialises mainly in the production of special effects for films, video games, and software for mobile phones and the internet.

This year a Guatemalan company, Surtidora de Alta Tecnología, created the CybeTech Pad CT8003, Guatemala’s first tablet computer, assembled in China, to compete with global brands.

Meanwhile, a South Korean company, Sollen-Guatemala, is about to commence operations here to make touch screens for iPad and iPhone with a view to distributing them throughout the Americas.

So call centres are just a part of the range of opportunities for technological development and bolstering competitiveness in Guatemala.

José Calderón, of the Language Learning Centre at the public San Carlos University of Guatemala, told IPS they were working on a project with AGEXPORT, the economy ministry, and other universities, to encourage young people to study English.

“The idea is for young people to learn English from the time they enter university, so that within five years we will have between 40,000 and 50,000 young people who know the language,” he said.

As part of this effort, San Carlos University will have to make provisions for its over 150,000 students to study English. “This will allow them to work in a call centre, and to pay for their studies,” Calderón said.

“The call centres are encouraging young people to learn English or perfect it, because they may know the language, but not at the level required for this type of work,” Patricia Mendizábal of the Instituto Guatemalteco Americano, which offers private English courses, told IPS.

The future of the call centre industry looks rosy.

Roberto Mancilla of the mixed agency Invest Guatemala told IPS that this country, “because of its geographical location, similar time zone to the United States, and teaching of English with American pronunciation, has made a substantial leap forward towards competitiveness in this kind of outsourcing.”

However, he admitted that proficiency in English continues to be a challenge.