Social Media as a Tool to Eliminate Corruption

During last Thursday’s presentation we discussed the potential that online social media can have as an international development tool. Finding alterative uses for social networks that address problems within communities can be of great use to solve problems that are specific to the development world. One such instance is the case of corruption, a problem that’s common in the developing world. Through the use of the social network ipaidabribe  users can anonymously mention instances where they paid a bribe creating a registry of corrupt officials and officers in the country. Although the site was previously mentioned in this blog I would like to expand on the way it works and its potential for the developing world.

 

Currently, the main site is focused on corruption instances in India with alternate webpages for Greece, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Pakistan. Additionally, it is currently developing web pages to report corruption in Azerbaijan, South Africa, Ukraine and Tunisia. To address corruption, the webpage is divided into 3 main sites: I paid a bribe, I am a bribe fighter, and I met an honest officer.  Through these sections of the webpage individuals can provide reports of instances where they were forced to pay a bribe, where they asked for one but refused to pay it and where they received help from an especially helpful government-employed person without him asking for a bribe. In these reports the individuals can detail as much as they want the situation pinpoint exactly information that may lead to the identification of those that asked for bribes or refused them.

 

Through this method awareness is brought to the problem of corruption and by identifying individuals that demand bribes their supervisors or law enforcement agencies can investigate the issue and give the appropriate sanctions. With almost 2,000,000 reports in India alone the system seems to be working and helping reduce corruption in the country.

Criticism Waged From “Bamako”: Development in a Neoliberal World

For this module, one of the assigned readings was on the Zapatista movement in Mexico.  In this article, the movement is placed within a context of anti-globalization protests in the 1990s. As Mark Gelsomino cites in “The Zapatista Effect: Information Communication Technology Activism and Marginalized Communities”:

Anti-World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, Genoa and Quebec drew hundreds of thousands of protesters invested in resisting a neo-liberalist conception of globalization. Unfortunately, the “anti-globalization” tag is something of a misnomer. By large, these groups are not against globalization itself, but rather the version of globalization that is driven by unfettered commoditization (3).

This reminds me of a film little known to American audiences yet profound on its indictments on global financial institutions and neoliberal development policy: Bamako.  In this 2006 film, the “unfettered commoditization” of globalization is put on trial as a Malian backyard becomes a courtroom for the citizens of Bamako against the International Monetary Fund.  The central question of this film revolves around value and self-worth:  why is the fate of countries determined by how much they export? According to the citizens of Mali in this film, this statistic bears little relevance with what occurs within a country’s borders.

At one point in the film, a Malian declares the services they were forced to develop did not make them better off.  Instead of free healthcare they were forced to privatize the industry and charge fees for services.  They learned how to do business like in the West: “pay or die”.  A few minutes later, the character declares “we must civilise globalization.”  Unrestrained capitalism, or “unfettered commoditization” is the beast the actor argues must be tamed.

It is important when promoting development projects that we consider the specific lessons we are presenting to foreign countries.  We must not teach them “pay or die”, we must approach the world in a more humane capacity.  We must understand the culture of a target country and not deprive them of a critical service in the process of promoting our goals.  While “Bamako” takes a rather one-sided stance, it holds valuable advice for the Western audience.

The movie ends with a quote by Amié Césaire: “My ear to the ground, I hear tomorrow pass.” There is much need in the world, but let us not promote false hope or continue in our history of broken promises.  There is already too much of that for the world to bear, lest we find ourselves on trial next.

World Bank Project Map

This week in class we discussed more about mapping as a humanitarian and development tool and in my limited research on this subject I stumbled upon a very interesting project that the World Bank implemented in 201o that they refer to as a Mapping for Results platform. This project involved the team has analyzing more than 2,500 World Bank-financed projects and geo-coding more than 30,000 locations spanning 144 countries. This project also overlays country maps with poverty and Millennium Development Goals data, with the geographic locations of donor-funded projects, enhancing our ability to monitor development impact and improve transparency and social accountability. This information is available to anyone who goes on to the webpage, and clicks on the country or region of their choosing. In having this information about development projects available to local people the World Bank hopes to foster greater transparency and accountability by encouraging citizens and stakeholders to give feedback on projects. This tool also allows donors to map a project’s progress without contacting project managers.

The main page shows a world map with green dots that you can click on and get more information about a specific coutntry. For example Uganda’s map looks like this:

This shows all of the different projects financed by the World Bank, a total of $1.7o billion, and divides them by sector (red with white cross is health, purple is public administration, green is agriculture). You can also sort the map by looking at a base of malnutrition, infant mortality, and maternal health, and it will show the changes being made in those fields. The map can also be looked at by sector (the map above) or by count, which shows the number of projects being implemented in a region.

I found this to be very interesting and eye opening to be able to see all of the development projects being implemented in a region by one funder. This can be a great resource to people living in a region who are able to look at how and where their development needs are being meant and also for people looking to start a project can come into their research with more of an idea of how many similar projects are already underway.

Pakistan ICT4D Resources

The following is a link to Pakistan’s national IT Policy written originally in August 2000 put forth by the IT & Telecommunications Division  Ministry of Science & Technology Government of Pakistan. It’s last revision took place in June 2012. http://www.pakboi.gov.pk/pdf/National_IT_Policy.pdf

The following link is is titled  “A Qualitative Inquiry of ICT based Socio-Economic Development in Developing Countries: The Case of Pakistan, written by B. Naveed in 2009. He anaylzes the Pakistan’s IT policy including areas of noted development and areas still lacking in terms of ICT. I found his anaylsis very helping in understanding Pakistan through an ICT4D lens. http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Baqir_uncg_0154D_10238.pdf

The following has several links to various webistes with data reports, ICT reports, broadband usage, among several other resources with information on Pakistan as a nation and ICT for development.http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/pk.htm Internet usage, broadband and telecommunications reports

The Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) is a space for collaborative monitoring of implementation of international (and national) commitments made by governments towards the creation of an inclusive information society, with an integrated World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) action agenda. The GISWatch Reports are a series of yearly reports covering the state of the information society from the perspectives of civil society, such as including ICTS and environmental sustainability; Access to Online Information and Knowledge; Acess to Infrastrure; Internet rights and Democratization; Internet and Corrpuption. There is interesting and relevant information on Pakistan in most of these reports.

Vietnam and gender inequality in ICT sector, but making headway in closing gender gap

As in most other countries, women in Viet Nam lag behind men in employment in the ICT sector, especially with regards to more “intellectual” work associated with the ICT industries. According to this presentation by Lee Anh Pham Lobb, of the participants surveyed, only 10.4% of the people employed in the “Specify/Design/Build” areas of software work are women, compared to 89.6% men. In contrast, 60% of the testing/support employees are women, compared to 40% men. When asked what could have caused this inequality, one male operational manager said, “‘ Women do testing better than men because women are always calm and patient. They can spend hours running the same test. Men cannot…’” and a female quality assurance manager said, “‘Design is still male territory. Men advises us (women) to keep out of this area.’” Clearly, if any change is to happen in terms of equal gender representation in the ICT industries, there must be some perception changes.

This imbalance has significant effects, especially when considering pay differences associated with more highly regarded positions, which also tend to be male-dominated. As we had discussed in class, many times, if all other factors were held constant, gender alone would not greatly affect access to and use of ICTs. Lack of resources, especially money, is often something that holds back many women from purchasing and using ICTs. Of course, in the case of employment in the ICT sector, the money dynamic is different, but it indirectly affects ICT access and usage by women not only because of what they earn but also because of the types of products and services that are designed. A paper by Tran Ngoc Ca and Bo Göransson explains that women’s needs are usually not considered in product and service design unless the designer is a woman. If you consider that for a moment, it would almost be as if all lefties’ needs were completely disregarded and they were forced to do things the right-handed way (which actually is true a lot of times, but unfair). Additionally, the way ICTs are used varies according to gender. ”Many studies confirm that women are more likely than men to use ICT for family-related purposes, such as health and education, as well as for small-scale social business activities.” It seems that women’s use of ICTs is of great import to the success of many development initiatives, so their needs must be taken into consideration during the design process.

It is often said that development cannot truly occur until women are as empowered as men, until they have equal access to resources and can utilize their skills to maximize economic growth and social harmony. In Viet Nam, it seems that gender equalization in many ways may readily be achieved as more women play an integral role in development initiatives. As Viet Nam embraces ICT4D and considers it a high national priority, we may soon see more rapid development as more ICTs become “gender-friendly”. In fact, the paper also says that Viet Nam is already somewhat “seen as a quite pro gender development and equality.”

Rostow on the Wrong Tracks?

Walt Whitman Rostow was a U.S. economist and political theorist who worked under Johnson Presidency. Although he did serve as a U.S. National Security Advisor, he’s much more well known through the development community for his famous, or dare I say infamous, Rostow Stages of Economic Development. While learning about these stages in class this week, I found myself developing a very critical stance to this approach which I later found was shared by a number of different scholars. In fact, according to Criticism of Rostow’s Stage Approach: The Concepts of Stage, System and Type by Yoichi Itagaki, when Rostow’s book The Stages of Economic Growth: A non-communist Manifesto was first published, it was originally met with harsh, scathing criticism from the international community.

 

Before analyzing these stages, let’s take a look at what they are:

1. Traditional Society – “The economy is dominated by subsistence activity where output is consumed by producers rather than traded (Ford 2004).”

2. Transitional Stage – (Preconditions for takeoff) “Increased specialization…(and) an emergence of a transport infrastructure to support trade…(and) entrepreneurs emerge (Ford 2004)”

3. Take Off “Industrialization increases, with workers switching from the agricultural sector to the manufacturing sector (Ford 2004).”

4. Drive to Maturity “The economy is diversifying into new areas. Technological innovation is providing a diverse range of investment opportunities…producing a wide range of goods and services and there is less reliance on imports. (Ford 2004).”

5. High Mass Consumption “The economy is geared towards mass consumption…consumer durable industries flourish. The service sector becomes increasingly dominant (Ford 2004).”

 

Itagaki explains that within the Japanese community, criticism was especially nuanced and varied. In one aspect, scholars claim that “Rostow regards the process of growth not as a homogeneous continuum but as a discontinuous course involving qualitative changes. This historical process of ‘continuity of discontinuity’ is then ‘generalized’ in a ‘sequence of stages’ (Itagaki 1963).” As another scholar, Paul Baran states, another flaw is how Rostow merely states the various stages without further explanation of how each stage is reached or what changes must take place before a transition to the next stage can take place.

Next, the model of stages themselves was met with criticism especially since Rostow does a poor job of explaining their function exactly. In fact, some supporters have tried to assuage the criticism by saying that Rostow’s stages were originally developed for the purposes of Western countries specifically. Overall, I do think that Rostow’s stages make economic sense in that this is a pathway towards economic development. However, I most strongly disagree with any suggestion that these stages can be considered universal. The main problems here are that they ignore cultural and social factors that different countries face and assume that all countries share the same values and aspirations of achieving an industrialized state of high mass consumption. Overall, I don’t see these stages serving as a very useful model for a modern grassroots approach to development, which relies much more on tailoring development initiatives to specific community cultural needs. Although they may identify historical stages through which some Western states have developed, this is not applicable or malleable to accommodate for varying conditions.

KR

 

Resources:

Yoichi Itagaki: (Itagaki 1963)

http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Periodicals/De/pdf/63_01_01.pdf

Rostow’s Stages of Development: (Ford 2004) http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nvfordc/econdev/introduction/stages.html

The Uganda Farmer, Climate change, and ICTs

 

Small scale cattle farmers in an 84,000 square kilometer area on southwest Uganda are the target of a new ICT development project this year called Climate Change Adaption and ICT or CHAI for short. An article in at scidev.net gives the details of this exciting new project, funded by Canada’s International Development Research Center will use data collected with ICT tools by users to provide information on water and climate related risks to help combat the effects of climate change. Living in an urban environment with little connection to the environment the average person is not conscious of climate change but these farmers, who control 6o percent of Uganda’s seven million head of cattle, are very much aware of the effects of climate change.

 

(map of Uganda’s Cattle Corridor)

This $600,000 project will work to build more weather stations, establish and strengthen data collection for local weather and water as well as provide users with seasonal forecasting and early warning for severe weather. This information will be collected by members of the project’s team as well as farmers who been trained. This information will be relayed through text messaging, voice messaging and radio, all in the different local languages of the users. This project will greatly stabilize the lives of those farmers who live in one of the areas of Africa most affected by climate change. According to Berhane Gebru, director of programs at US-based FHO360-Satelife, one of the implementing organizations, currently “When there is a crisis like a prolonged drought, herdsmen sell their animals as a coping strategy. We will provide them with information to cope and make choices.” This two year project hopes to counter act the economic fluctuations brought on my climate change through the introduction of data collection ICTs and broaden the use of mobile phones and radios to help relay the information.

The information gathered in this project and the technological infrastructure that will be created through this project are goals that the Ugandan Government is aiming to provide for its people. These aspects include the development of the ICT infrastructures, increasing indigenous and traditional communication and ICT training in Uganda.

Richard Heeks Strikes Again – Non-ICT4D National Policy Can Determine Success of ICT4D Initiatives

For this blogpost, I decided to look up some blogs that consider the topics we’ve discussed in class this week. I found ICT4DBlog, which features an article about why some ICT4D initiatives work and why others don’t. I read the article and thought it would make a great discussion topic, considering our discussion in class today about how national policy is often a driving force of the success of ICT4D initiatives, even if it is not certain that all elements of this policy will be implemented.

After having finished reading the article, I glanced up to see who the author was, and lo and behold, it was Richard Heeks!  I hadn’t heard of the man until a week ago (we read his article “ICTs and the MDGs: On the Wrong Track?”), but since then, I’ve learned about how he feels about the MDGs and how he feels development should occur. I agree with him on several points, but I’ll leave that aside for now and sum up the points he made in this article, “The Obama Presidency and ICT4D”.

Disclaimer: This article is from November 2008, but I believe it makes some important points.

It seems that at the outset of his presidency, President Obama did not specifically make ICT4D a policy priority, but he has put forth “policy stances” that promote 3 areas that do affect ICT4D:

1. Technology: increase ICT infrastructure; promote “e-transparency” through increased ICT usage in the government
2. Trade: reduce trade barriers; increase the prevalence of the “Made in America” phenomenon
3. Foreign Policy/Development: increase aid from $25 billion to $50 billion by 2012 (not achieved according to Politifact); increase investment in AIDS/Tuberculosis/Malaria Global Fund and Global Education Fund; promote African entrepreneurship and access to “green technology”

Heeks is quick to point out that “support” of ICT and development do not necessarily translate to a combination of these two areas. And any relationship between the two is dependent upon the three areas mentioned above, as politics can carry forward or crush initiatives without even noticing.

Interestingly enough, Heeks believes that politics itself may have been changed by ICT. It’s possible that Obama’s campaign may have projected a “‘do-as-I-do’”  impact upon developing countries by unconsciously promoting “‘e-democracy,’” which came about as a result of his campaign engaging people in the political process through the internet.

As we learned in class today, policy stances do not equal guaranteed action. Policies are guidelines to help a country determine its priorities and to try to achieve the necessary changes within a reasonable amount of time. As we stand at the already-realized future of this 2008 article, it’s still unclear whether ICT4D  has itself become a national policy priority, but it is safe to say that ICT has been greatly utilized in most development projects.

Linking NGOs through ICT

As Unwin discusses at the beginning of ICT4D, NGO’s have the potential to greatly impact a country’s implementation and spread of ICT usage among citizens. With the background and intimate knowledge they gather over the years about a specific region’s culture, traditions and religion among other factors, NGOs build up the necessary expertise to understand which methods are best suited for certain environments. Through their work and depending on how long an NGO has worked in a certain community, they’re able to form trusting relationships of respect with locals.

Sarvodaya-Fusion Staff in Sri Lanka (Courtesy of ITPro)

 

Following in this train of thought, an article was recently released about how NGOs in Sri Lanka are being connected by an ICT focused non-profit called “Sarvodaya-Fusion.” Their aim in this project is to unify Sri Lankan NGOs by arming them with the power of ICTs, making their work more effective and efficient. Whether they are focusing on rural economic development or environmental conservation, all NGOs can benefit through the advancement of their ICT knowledge. In fact, Sarvodaya-Fusion plans on dividing attending organizations into focus groups based on their individual missions.

 

A secondary benefit of Fusion’s project is how it will indirectly serve as a network through which over 50 Sri Lankan NGOs can unify themselves. All different types of NGO work are vital to improving any country, but their impact can be held back by unnecessary repetition of work and a general lack of communication across organizations.  “As the nation’s leading ICT4D organization,” Sarvodaya-Fusion has the right ICT knowledge to lead Sri Lanka’s next tech era. Last year, their organizing brought together 40 NGOs and hopefully many more will join this year, especially because of the support they will be receiving by a tech team from Microsoft’s Sri Lanka division. Judging by their stellar track record, looks like Sarvodaya-Fusion will be starting off 2013 on the right note and forging the path for Sri Lanka’s future in ICT4D.

For more information, please refer to the ITPro article linked below:

Reference Link: “Connecting Sri Lanka’s NGOs with ICT”

ICT4D: Reflections of a Multifarious Field

I think I speak on behalf of most of the class in noting that this was my first exposure to ICT4D. I don’t consider myself a tech-y person (I must admit I even struggled to navigate around the new blackboard page at the onset of the course), but as I browse through the blog and Twitter page, I am impressed by the how much we have explored–both in an individual and collective sense. As many of my peers/fellow bloggers have noted in their reflective posts, it has become a concern to focus on not just what projects are implemented, but why and how. As I browse through our reading list for the course on Blackboard, I am impressed by just how much we were able to cover.  ICT4D is a multifarious and dynamic field. I think many of the most salient lessons to be learned reflect ways in which the ICT4D field can be managed and improved. This has concurrently prompted me to consider the field of development at large.  We have talked about infrastructure a great deal in this course, and a repeated pitfall of development projects is that infrastructural barriers undermine larger development goals. There are many lessons to be learned from ICT4D, and many of these lessons can be applied to other development classes.

While I have encountered a degree of concern pertaining to the way the IDEV curriculum is managed here at Tulane, I do see the relevance of this class, as ICT has, and will continue to shape the world. As Coby mentioned in his own post, we learn by doing—blogging, tweeting, and mapping, prompted us to new challenges while concurrently allowing us to assert ourselves in the field and witness/participate in a valuable dialogue that exists on the web. When we first started blogging, I must confess that I struggled to find resources. Tweeting prompted me to see all the information bouncing around on the internet, and explore the compelling voices of many of the members of the ICT field. For instance, the week we explored Linda Raftree’s work (The Field [formerly known as?] ICT4D is messy) opened my eyes to the larger debate. As we explore her intricate and dense post, we are prompted to consider an overflow of opinions. I think the discussion that followed in the wake of Hersman’s ‘blog bomb’ was productive and dynamic.

There are many challenges to consider in the context of ICT4D-and this we are all acutely aware. We had the opportunity to explore specific challenges in the context of our specific counties, deepening our understanding and relationship to issues that can at time seem too large to grapple with.  In all development projects, understanding the target group is key. It is also is key to see ICT4D t not as a quick fix for development projects, but as an opportunity to reevaluate the system of aid. ICT projects commonly fail because of lacking communication between project organizers and the target group, and understanding from both sides would make projects more successful. This is itself is a large goal. The HCD toolkit reaffirms the idea that the need for better communication is essential; both sides must fully understand what the project is intending to accomplish and what can be expected of it.

Another challenge is showing how the Internet can be a tool for development in various developing contexts of the world. In their work, Can One Laptop Per Child Save the World’s Poor, Warschauer and Ames articulate that the OLPS deployments that simply tried to hand out laptops have failed because they ignored local contexts and discounted the importance of social, as well as technical support and training. This seems to reflect a larger pattern in technology and development, in which new technologies generate excitement and optimism to be eventually deconstructed by disappointing realities; according to Warschuer and Ames. “it is not the computer that brings benefit, “but rather the social and technical support that surrounds the computer that makes the difference VOA’s focus on the training component reflects a fortunate contrast from the failures of OLPS. I think this is important to reflect upon.

ICTs have the power to change the way we practice development throughout the world. I am very interested in further exploring barriers to access. Information is a tool and access to information is a process for building self-reliance, empowerment, civil society, participation and gender equality.