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The Transformational Use ICTs: Summary of Study Outcomes
1. CONTEXT
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have the potential to transform business and government in Africa, driving entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth. A new flagship report – eTransform Africa – produced by The World Bank and the African Development Bank, with the support of the African Union, identifies best practice in the use of ICTs in key sectors of the African economy. Under the theme “Transformation-Ready”, the growing contribution of ICTs to Agriculture, Climate Change Adaptation, Education, Financial Services, Government Services and Health is explored. In addition, the report highlights the role of ICTs in enhancing African regional trade and integration as well as the need to build a competitive ICT industry to promote innovation, job creation and the export potential of African companies.
eTransform Africa will be formally launched on 28th May 2012 at the Open Innovation Africa Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. Six sector and two thematic reports are already available online at www.eTransformAfrica.org, including more than 20 detailed case studies of ICT transformation in action in Africa. This overview presents the main messages arising from this body of research.
2. THE TRANSFORMATIONAL POWER OF ICTS
ICTs, especially mobile phones, have revolutionized communications in Africa. The explosive growth of mobile phones in Africa over the past decade demonstrates the appetite for change across the continent. In the year 2000, there were fewer than 20 million fixed-line phones across Africa, a number that had accumulated slowly over a century, and a waiting list of a further 3.5 million. With a penetration rate of just over 2 per cent, phones were to be found only in offices and the richest households. But the coming of the mobile phone has transformed communications access. By 2012, there were more than 500 million mobile subscriptions in Africa, more than in the US or the European Union, making Africa the fastest growing region in the world. Few imagined that such demand existed, let alone that it could be afforded. In some African countries, more people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water, a bank account or even electricity. Mobile phones are now being used as a platform to provide access to the internet, to applications, and to government services.
Africa’s “mobile decade” has driven its economic growth. Foreign Direct Investment is booming and Africa is now a much easier place to do business, thanks to its much-improved connectivity. ICTs directly contribute around 7 per cent of Africa’s GDP, which is higher than the global average. That’s because, in Africa, mobile phones are also substitutes for many other types of service, such as financial credit, newspapers, games and entertainment. So the value of a mobile phone is higher in Africa than elsewhere. We are now seeing the rapid development of mobile broadband with smartphones and affordable tablets across Africa. This will bring even greater social and economic impacts over the next decade.
ICTs can empower the lives of Africans and are driving entrepreneurship, innovation and income growth. The effect of ICTs on the African economy is impressive, but it is the way they are changing the everyday lives of Africans that is genuinely transformational. The eTransform Africa report explains how mobile phones are being used to provide financial services in Kenya (M-PESA) and agricultural market information services in Ghana (Esoko). It shows how electronic filing of taxes in South Africa or sensor-based irrigation systems in Egypt are revolutionizing traditional practices. And it describes how ICT tools are helping Africans face up to new challenges, like climate change, or tackle ongoing issues, such as HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, the wider use of ICTs in government is bringing more transparency and openness, for instance through Kenya’s Open Data initiative or the use of Twitter and Facebook to coordinate protests and inform international opinion as part of the Arab Spring. This growing social and economic dependence on ICTs brings new challenges, not least the need for infrastructure to become more robust and resilient, and for services to become more reliable. Issues of cybersecurity and data protection will also come to the fore as security and trust become increasingly important.
It's not about the phone or the computer; it’s about the applications and the information they deliver. ICTs now offer major opportunities to advance human development – from providing basic access to education or health information to making cash payments and stimulating citizen involvement in the democratic process. Phones, computers and websites are powerful tools but it is individuals, communities and firms that are driving change. Mobile phones and the internet are helping to release the dynamism of African society. State-owned monopoly telephone companies were, for too long, a barrier to African ingenuity -- due to waiting lists, high prices and unreliable services -- but now a thriving local ICT sector is part of the solution, not the problem. In many of Africa’s largest cities, smartphones can now be obtained for under US$100. They have the equivalent computer power of a PC that would have cost over US$3’000 a decade earlier. With cheap data packages and free Wi-Fi, smartphones can be used to start a business, or to find a job.
ICTs can ease cross-border communications, financial transactions, and sharing of data and information and are having a catalytic impact upon regional integration and trade facilitation. Until recently it was cheaper to call America or Europe from Africa than a neighbouring country. And Africa’s entire internet connectivity was less than that of the tiny country of Luxembourg. Such disparities hindered cross-border regional trade. But this has changed with some 68’000 km of submarine cable and over 615’000 km of national backbone networks laid in the past few years. The internet bandwidth available to Africa’s one billion citizens grew 20-fold between 2008 and 2012. These electronic highways will provide the trading routes of the future supporting Africa to improve its trade performance both within the continent and between the continent and other world regions.
The deployment of ICTs and the development of applications must be rooted in the realities of local circumstance and diversity. Despite the optimism caused by Africa’s ICT revolution, there is no one-size-fits-all model, and services that prove popular in one country may fail elsewhere. National ICT strategies must be developed locally, building upon consultative stakeholder processes and adapted to local circumstances. The private sector will drive the investment, and provided more than US$56 billion in telecom infrastructure investment in the decade to 2008. But this may not be enough to ensure competitive markets, or to reach rural areas. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), such as the Burundi Backbone System consortium, can help. But there are still whole countries, such as the newly independent South Sudan, that are connected to the outside world only through slow and expensive satellite links.
Governments have an important part to play, in creating an enabling environment and in acting as a role model and lead client in adopting new innovations and technologies. Governments may participate directly in infrastructure investment, as the government of Botswana did when creating an alternative fibre route to the coast via Namibia. But their larger role lies in creating an enabling environment – issuing licences, making available rights of way, auctioning spectrum, mandating infrastructure sharing and interconnection and so on– that allows a liberalized market to thrive. Beyond that, governments can serve as a leading customer for faster networks, and can migrate their own services and data online. When the Kenyan government put services online such as public service jobs, tax returns, exam results and candidate selection for schools, it provided a major demand driver for mobile broadband, and stimulated further investment in that country’s networks. Similarly, in Ethiopia, government and donor sponsorship of eHealth initiatives is helping to finance network investment.
Effective use of ICTs will require cross-sectoral collaboration and a multi-stakeholder approach, based on open data and open innovation. Valuable and sustainable ICT applications are most likely to develop within an environment that encourages experimentation and collaboration between technologists, entrepreneurs and development practitioners. Often, stakeholders may combine their interests in communal projects, such as the creation of the Cape Town Internet exchange. The recent flowering of local ICT development clusters (LIDs) – such as iHub and NaiLab in Kenya, Hive CoLab and AppLab in Uganda, Activspaces in Cameroon, BantaLabs in Senegal, Kinu in Tanzania or infoDev’s mLabs in Kenya and South Africa – is helping to create new spaces for collaboration, training, applications and content development, and for pre-incubation of firms.
Africa is still at the beginning of its growth curve and, to date, most ICT applications have been pilot programs. Now is the time for rigorous evaluation, replication and scaling up of best practice. The research carried out for this study has highlighted a number of success stories and has shown examples of programs that could be scaled up and replicated elsewhere. But there is a lack of systematic monitoring of outcomes, and cost-benefit analyses of investments are rare. Nevertheless, the evidence that has been marshalled in these studies, the most comprehensive carried out to date, does point to the potential for effective rollout and a period of rapid growth ahead. Africa was once an ICT laggard, but is now becoming an ICT leader. Innovations that began in Africa – like dual SIM card mobile phones, or using mobile phones for remittance payments – are now spreading across the continent and beyond.
3. LESSONS FROM THE SECTORAL STUDIES
A study on the Agriculture sector was carried out by Deloitte and contains case study analysis of the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags for tracking livestock in Namibia, and ICT sensor networks used in water management for irrigation in Egypt. These examples show how ICT can help address some of the challenges facing agriculture and food security in Africa, such as inadequate access to markets and unfavourable market conditions, weak infrastructure, high production and transport costs, natural disasters, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity. When a common information system/platform is available for stakeholders, such as DrumNet in Kenya, it has been shown to improve efficiency by minimizing the duplication, ensuring the consistency and improving the integrity of data.
The use of ICTs in adapting to Climate Change was studied by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), with country case studies of Malawi, Senegal and Uganda. Africa is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because its major economic sectors are more sensitive to climate change and because it has lower levels of general economic development. African countries are preparing for the potential consequences of climate change by building their understanding of climate science, identifying priorities and planning for adaptation, and implementing targeted adaptation measures. Such measures can range from addressing the drivers behind vulnerability and building response capacity, to managing climate risk and addressing impacts directly. ICTs will play an important role in helping the African continent to reduce and manage vulnerability and impacts. Large-scale deployment of ICTs such as satellites, meteorological stations, sensor networks, GPS and GIS applications can be used to monitor and measure climate impacts. National and regional policies for open data and communications will be important components. Equally important, however, will be smaller scale applications – ICT enabled information services combined with mobile phone applications that will support knowledge sharing among people and communities to diversify livelihoods, reduce vulnerability and build the capacity to respond quickly to changing circumstances.
The Education sector was examined by ict Development Associates, whose report includes country case studies from South Africa, Uganda and Senegal. It focuses on five critical aspects: teacher professional development, digital learning resources, affordable technologies, education management information systems and National Research and Education Networks. Education and innovation are interrelated drivers of development, which can be facilitated by ICTs. The means by which educators and students access learning materials and collaboration platforms are increasingly affordable as more functional, low-cost mobile devices become available. Connectivity is also crucial for accessing resources, and requires continued focus on competitive broadband access using suitable technologies (wired and wireless), and national and regional collaborative networks. Access to content is improved by open educational resources, which can be copied and adapted without licence fees. However, effectively integrating technology into teaching and learning requires well-qualified educators, a clear focus on equipping teachers with ICT literacy skills and support for teachers to use skills and technology in teaching and learning.
Vital Wave Consulting analyzed the Financial Services sector, including country case studies of Gabon and Kenya. They conclude that mobile banking has reached a tipping point in Africa and now is the time for policy-makers to act boldly. ICTs combined with innovative business models have helped widen financial inclusion, most visibly case in Kenya, where active bank accounts have grown fourfold since 2007 aided by some 17 million M-PESA mobile money accounts. Governments have a key role to play in encouraging investment and in enabling effective regulation, in consultation with Central Banks and the private sector, including commercial banks and mobile money service providers. Governments need to coordinate with the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in support of regional integration by introducing favourable regulations to allow mobile operators and other non-bank third parties to offer cross border mobile financial services.
The issue of Modernizing Government through ICT was tackled by Deloitte, with case studies of integrated financial management systems in Malawi and electronic tax filing in South Africa. Clearly ICTs are fundamentally changing the way in which citizens and businesses interact with government representatives and other agents of the state. The associated high expectations, particularly regarding the speed and flexibility with which public service providers can respond to individual requests, provide feedback on programs and expenditure and handle national crises, are extremely challenging. Attention to how governments communicate should not overshadow the importance of the accuracy, completeness and relevance of what they communicate. A balance is needed between the citizen-facing aspects as well as the underlying efficiency and effectiveness of back-office systems. Hence, the delivery tiers of e- and m-Government are key but depend on the design, development and implementation of underlying ICT systems. Governments should recognize the power of social media and exploit it to their advantage, in particular to reinforce democratic processes, drive efficiency, foster innovation, empower public sector workers and expose corruption. Establishment of accurate, effective and efficient national identification systems, incorporating technology that reduces fraud and identity theft, was found to be one of the key building blocks for an effective government service delivery.
The Health sector study, carried out by Vital Wave Consulting, includes country case studies of Ethiopia and Mali. Health trends in Africa are generally positive but there is need for significant improvements. The pre-emptive use of ICT could act as a “game-changer” in helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With the impact that mobile-based ICTs are already having for consumer communication and transactions, they could be further used to enable and simplify consumer and institutional healthcare service delivery funded by out-of-pocket and insurance transactions. Supply chain issues that also impede procurement and delivery of equipment and medical supplies could be addressed by a mobile supply chain management and equipment tracking system in which mobile devices (phones, PDAs, tablets, laptops) are used for data collection and monitoring. ICTs can also help in outreach to rural areas, and by providing communication between rural healthcare extension workers and trained nurses and doctors in peri-urban facilities as exemplified by the IKON tele-radiology program in Mali.
The cross-cutting study of Regional Trade and Integration was carried out by ict Development Associates, and includes case studies of Botswana, Kenya and Senegal. Africa's trade performance is weak compared with other world regions, particularly in trade within the continent, and is undermined by inefficiencies and poor coordination between national agencies along the supply chain. The study describes experience and opportunities for using ICTs in trade facilitation – especially in improving the efficiency and coordination of trade and transport logistics; port, customs and border management; and the availability to trading businesses of information about markets and trade requirements. Data sharing through national and regional 'single windows' can reduce costs and delays, improve reliability and enhance the profitability of trade. ICTs should, however, form part of a broad approach to trade promotion, and implementation needs careful planning and resources. Regional integration through Regional Economic Communities (RECs) can play a crucial role. The RECs and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) should work with other stakeholders to advance ICT-enabled trade facilitation.
Finally, a second cross-cutting study on ICT Competitiveness was carried out by Excelsior with TNO, with country case studies of Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. These countries are embracing the use of ICTs in novel ways to improve the social and economic opportunities available to firms and citizens. Provided the African ICT market continues its impressive double-digit growth, the market could be worth more than US$ 150 billion by 2016. The study highlights the need to build a competitive ICT industry to promote innovation, job creation and the export potential of African companies.
Of course, challenges remain. The continent largely lags behind the rest of the world in terms of ICT readiness and Africa has made slower progress in the past two years when compared to other regions. The Arab Spring has caused a short-term decline in inward FDI in the north of the continent. Pricing of ICT services, especially broadband, continues to be higher than other regions. Furthermore, the growing trend towards taxing incoming international calls suggests a worrying reversion to the former view of the ICT sector as a cash cow. The challenge for the next decade is to build on the mobile success story and complete the transformation. This will require reducing the cost of access for mobile broadband, supporting government private-sector collaboration, improving the e-commerce environment, enhancing ICT labour market skills, encouraging innovative business models that drive employment, such as microwork and business process outsourcing, and creating spaces that support ICT entrepreneurship, such as ICT incubators, and local ICT development cluster.
Interview: Challenges for ICT policies
Anahi Ayala Iacucci talks about the challenge how to abstract policy decisions from experiences in projects and to which extent these can or cannot be applied to various countries.
Interviewer: Hello, Anahi Ayala Lacucci. You're a World Bank consultant, also here at the eTransform Africa Workshop, and I would be very curious to hear your highlights from the past three days.
Anahi Ayala Lacucci: OK, so it has been very interesting, especially because I'm a practitioner, and in this conference, there were many people that work on policy issues. I just think it's very interesting for me, because one of the things that I've definitely learned from this conference has been that it's very, very difficult to try to abstract from practical things like application of ICTs to different fields, what you can actually use to suggest or to give recommendation to policy makers about how to help them in understanding how they can use ICT in their countries, or applied to different fields. So for me, what was very interesting was the understanding that you need to try to design a framework that can be valid for different countries and that can be valid for different fields, but it can be used in a practical way.
I think we face various challenges. For example how to ensure sustainability? How exactly do you face challenges like application of ICT to fields and to different contexts where each context has a different background? If you want to apply ICT to climate change, in whatever country in Africa, you're talking about a huge continent. You're talking about countries that have so many different background situations, so many different infrastructures, so many different ways of thinking and cultures.
So the main important thing will be for all these people to find the key points, to find the entry point into the different sectors that they are working in, that can be used by policy makers to actually enhance the use of ICT in their own country.
Interviewer: Thank you very much.
Interview: Local ICT sector in Africa
Interviewer: Hello, Javier Ewing from Excelsior Firm. You have done a great research on local ICT sector here at the eTransform Africa workshop, and I'd be very interested to hear the results and the most interesting parts of it.
Javier Ewing: Absolutely. So, we're in the late stages of our research as part of the eTransform project. The Excelsior Firm, in consortium with TNO, has been asked to look at the local ICT sector, specifically the issues affecting entrepreneurs and how the donor community and other interested parties can enable those entrepreneurs in a more effective way. We looked at everything from physical infrastructure issues, the national commercial environment, and then the global commercial environment to understand where the roadblocks are and how the donor community can be helpful.
What we found in our search is that there are a couple themes that resonate across the continent along the commercial environment, in particular the infrastructure, so having reliable infrastructure, power, transport networks. So, the types of themes that seem to resonate at this point are really around a couple topics. One is the infrastructure that the entrepreneurs are using, so making sure that the telecommunication links, the power situation, transport networks are reliable.
You can see in a case of a country like a Kenya or a Morocco, where the infrastructure actually is quite reliable compared to the rest of the continent, it creates an environment for entrepreneurs to take risks, whereas in a country like Nigeria where the power situation, in particular, is a little bit less reliable, it actually makes it a lot tougher for those entrepreneurs to take risks on mission critical applications. So that's one theme that came across.
There are themes in business skills and technical skills, making sure that we have a good marriage of the right technical capabilities and the right business acumen. And there are themes around how this sector can really enable greater transparency across business and across life.
So we feel that there's actually quite a bit that the donor community can do to enable these conditions, and we'll draw that out further in our research, but we are looking forward to laying out those recommendations and really helping to play a small role in driving change on the continent.
African Virtual University: Building the ICT Capacity of African Universities
The African Virtual University (AVU) launched between 2009 and 2010 a total of 10 new Open Distance and eLearning (ODeL) Centers in 10 Partner Institutions situated in 10 African countries.
The purpose of these centers is to act as hubs for the creation, organization and sharing of knowledge as well as development, delivery and management of ODeL Programs at AVU partner institutions. Theses centers have joined the network of partner Institutions of AVU.
The centers are playing an important role by supporting the institutions implement distance and eLearning policies, strategies and programs. An example is the impact of the initiative at the University of Nairobi (see Video below).
The main functions of ODeL centers are:
- A training facility for PI staff in use of ICTs in the development, delivery and management of Open, Distance and eLearning
- To be a delivery point for current and future ODeL programs
- A physical location where staff are able to conduct research and participate in collaborative work in ODeL
- A revenue generating facility in order to guarantee long term sustainability of the center.
The AVU also trained staff members in each institution in 3 main areas: materials development, technology and delivery of ODeL programs and Management and financing of distance and eLearning programs.
This initiative was part of the AVU Multinational Project (2005-2010) funded by the African Development Bank. Other activities of this project include the development of ICT integrated Maths and Sciences Teacher Education Programs that were released as Open Educational Resources, the AVU Capacity Enhancement Program and gender mainstreaming.
About the African Virtual University:
Teacher Professional Development
By Robert Hawkins, Sr. Education Specialist (World Bank)
The World Bank and the African Development Bank, with the support of the African Union are collaborating on the development of a report on how information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially mobile phones, have the potential to change fundamental business and government models in 8 sectors for Africa.
The overall goal is to raise awareness and stimulate action, especially among African governments and development practitioners, on how ICTs can contribute to the improvement and transformation of traditional and new economic and social activities. For Education, the team is reviewing the impact of ICT across 5 essential educational themes – teacher professional development, digital content, affordable devices, education management, and national education and research networks.
Prior to final dissemination of the report, we will try to synthesize the key messages emerging from this study and seek feedback from the edutech community on key issues, opportunities, challenges and recommendations emerging from the study to better inform the issues and messages to be shared with African client governments.
The main issue we will review is to empower teachers to most effectively use new technologies for teaching and learning?
The lead consultant for this study is ICT Development Associates. The key issues highlighted by the report from ICT Development Associates include:
- Professional Development of teachers for effective use of ICT needs to be integrated into broader professional development plans.
- Professional Development needs to focus on the use of technology for improved instruction and be a tool for improved teaching.
- ICT should permeate all courses and not be siloed into a single course.
- Teacher skills and knowledge in ICT integration are imperatives for schools to produce students with 21st century skills.
- Teacher technical mastery of ICT skills is not sufficient for successful integration of ICT into teaching
- Life-long professional development must be a focus.
- There is no single best practice or general recipe for success
The UNESCO planning guide provides a useful framework for assessing and supporting the development of teacher competencies. A Wiki has been developed for a World Bank-supported project in Tanzania to share ideas on how to develop and implement such a framework.
Key Opportunities that have emerged from ICT Development Associates report include:
- Provision of multiple development pathways provided to teachers based on their needs and circumstances – from formal courses, to self-paced, to communities of practice.
- Acceptance of sustained, lifelong professional development as opposed to once off training. UNESCO competency framework supports this approach and provides standards against which ICT competencies can be measured.
- Models such as communities of practice give teachers opportunity to drive professional development.
- Availability of reputable worldwide programs could provide cost savings in course development
This analysis of the issues has been augmented by a set of practitioner experiences shared through blogs posted on the edutech debate site. The five blogs are:
- The Makerere E-learning Experience Providing Professional Development to Academics
- Time to Move to Competency-Based Continuing Professional Development
- The contextualization and implementation of a teacher competency framework for ICT4E in Guyana
- How Student Technology Profiles Effect Open and Distance Learning in South Africa
- SchoolNet SA is Learning from Experience
Finally, the report from ICT Development Associates have highlighted several several key Challenges. In order to get a sense of the importance of these various challenges in the African context we ask for your feedback and comments on which challenges are most crucial for addressing teacher professional development. Please share your thoughts. The challenges include:
Vote: Challenges
there's this assumption that the teacher knows it all, so the issue of teacher professional development is not given attention at all.i'm an elearning consultant, ECOWAS Commission and a postgrad student of the teacher education dept, faculty of...
Interview with Bakary Diallo on ICTs and Higher Education in Africa
eTransform Africa Team: Hello, Bakary Diallo from the African Virtual University. You have participated three days in the workshop now and I'd be very interested to hear your feedback, especially about the study on the education sector.
Bakary Diallo: Thank you very much. I would very much like to thank the organizers for associating me and African Virtual University to this workshop. I was the peer reviewer of the education sector output research and I will say that they have done a very good job. I mean, presenting the focus of the study in matters that are really important for the ICT sector to take up, especially for education. These are education, professional development, digital learning resources, affordable technologies, education management information system, and national resource in education network. We discussed these issues in a very broad way.
I liked the way that the discussion of the resource project was structured and having interaction between all the research teams.
Especially, I believe that for the education sector to take off really and benefit fully from the potential of ICT, we will need to look at building the capacity of universities, having the universities being the center of research and innovation.
Just like it is the case in the U.S. with Stanford University. We will have to capacitate universities somehow to get this. There are different ways of doing it, but one of the ways would be to have centers of excellence.
But I think it's important also to talk about the policy in ICT education. This is so important if we don't want to have isolated small projects here and there. We need to have national policies. We need to have policies for universities and institutions and a clear plan for how to roll out these policies. I think it's also very important to sensitize and even train our leaders on different sectors, like specially education ministries and universities to be aware, first of all, of ICT in education so that they can make a very informed decision in terms of strategies, in terms of budgeting etc.
I think also that it's very important to address the issue of access. ICT, the infrastructure backbone, Internet, but also capacitate the institutions in terms of computer centers, access to Internet, reliable power, eLearning infrastructure, because they need to deliver programs using online learning systems. Building the capacity of education networks education and research networks is also important. Finally, and that is very important, I think that the education institutions should be providing an enabling environment for all the sectors in terms of producing the required graduates computer scientists that are required.
And also, the last point is now the development, adaptation, and adoption of educational applications, virtual laboratories and virtual libraries in educational resources. Operational resources are critically important now. I believe that can help institutions to realize economies of scale while ensuring quality of teaching and learning activities. Thank you.
eTransform Africa Team: Thank you very much.
Reflections on the eTransform Africa Review Workshop
By Anahi Ayala Iacucci (Twitter / Blog)
On the last week of June in Johannesburg I attended the eTransform Africa workshop as an external reviewer for the eTransform report on Climate change. The overall goal is to raise awareness and stimulate action, especially among African governments and development practitioners, on how ICTs can contribute to the improvement and transformation of traditional and new economic and social activities.
Furthermore, the studies should recommend ways in which to scale up the successful application of ICTs and to further operationalize their use within a number of strategic sectors, while paying appropriate attention to associated risks.
In order to provide analytical background for the study, the partners have awarded a series of contracts to consultant firms to conduct sectorial studies of the actual and potential use of ICTs in the African economy.
The aim is to identify specific sectorial opportunities and challenges in Africa that can possibly be addressed through an increased or more efficient use of ICT, benefitting from a best practice analysis of applications around the world. Each study typically contains a scan of ICT applications in a particular sector followed by a more detailed study of two or three countries case studies, on a representative basis, chosen in conjunction with the partners. On the basis of this analysis, it should be possible to form a clearer understanding of the barriers to wider adoption and the factors for success.
These studies will then be used to assist the partners in formulating options for strategic interventions in these fields and to making appropriate recommendations.
The sector studies have been awarded as follows:
• Agriculture (Deloitte);
• Climate Change Adaptation (IISD);
• Education (ICT Development Associates);
• Financial Services (VitalWave);
• Health (VitalWave);
• Delivery of Public Services (Deloitte).
In addition, two closely related cross-cutting studies will look at:
• The contribution of ICTs to regional trade and integration (ICT Development Associates);
• The local ICT sector as a platform for regional trade and integration (TNO/Excelsior).
It has been incredibly interesting to participate in this workshop for several reasons and I have to say I was quite impressed by the approach that the World Bank and the African Development Bank have taken with regard to those studies.
- The crowdsourcing methodology that has been used to gather feedback and to publicize the reports before the release of the final versions. The eTransform website in fact is an open platform that allows anyone that is interested to download the reports from the website (the drafts of the report for now) and to add comments or suggestions to the authors. This approach is incredibly useful and will allow, if there will be participation, to anyone that work in the field to influence the content of the reports and to add their expertise and their experiences. This participatory approach is a win to win according to me as it guarantee the possibility for practitioners but also for policy makers to participate remotely on the drafting of the reports and in this way make the reports themselves a more comprehensive overview of the field.
- The use of external reviewers before the release of the final reports. I was called to do an independent evaluation of the report on Climate Change since I have been working as crowdsourcing consultant for the World Bank in the Pilot Project for Climate Change and Resilience in Zambia. The bank has decided to use the reviewer not at the end of the process but in the middle, which, which all its limitations, is a very smart approach. For three days the consultants had the possibility to discuss with both the partners and the external reviewers and experts in the field about their work, and to gather feedbacks, comments and suggestions on how to move forward.
- The use of social media to gather feedback on the report and the integration with blogs and multimedia. The eTransform website is definitely not the classical World Bank or AfDB website: twitter feeds, blogs and comment sections allow anyone, with any means, to participate in the process and everything is open and displayed in the website as it comes through. As the reports are on the use of ICTs in Africa, this approach underlines a deep understanding of the background necessary to make those reports a serious benchmark in the WB and AfDB approach to ICTs, not only in words but also with facts.
But what do those reports means in practical terms? And why are they important?
In the past year I have been working on application of ICTs for different organizations, from small NGOs to big international organizations, and what I noticed is that the main problems on ICT4D come from the policy makers side more than from the practical implementation. Where the overall background relative to regulations, infrastructures and policies is not there to allow a broader use and implementation of ICTs, e sub-category of cheap and low cost solutions are developed and created on the ground by local organizations and groups to use and apply ICTs in the present constraints. At the local level I would say there is more understanding of the necessary use of those tools and of their possible applications. What is missing is the high level understanding of what this means and how this affect governance and national policies.
In this regard there is a missing study in the eTransform project, which is the one that goes deeper in analyzing the impact on governance: what ICT is doing in terms of political impact on balance of powers in African countries? – Granted, both the World bank and the AfDB are probably not the right body to conduct a study on this topic -.
What I hope is that from those studies, policy makers around Africa will have a better understanding of the necessary actions to move forward in the definition of effective policies that can, if implemented, give to their own countries a better chance to take advantage of ICTs applications.
After those 3 days of discussions, I came out with a list of issue that according to me are the main important to keep in mind in any of the fields analyzed in the reports:
- The importance to look for locally created and implemented technologies that are born from local needs and developed inside the local existing national conditions.
- The pivotal importance of a political will to lower barriers in the market for the commercialization of mobile technology, satellite technology, Internet and general ICT infrastructure.
- The need for Africa Countries to look more at their neighbors than at the Western World in terms of possible application of ICTs
- The importance in all of this of the educational and research component, which can alone increase the market, the interest, the availability and the use of ICTs.
- The incredible important to look at the unexpected effects of the application of technology in Africa (as in all the rest of the world). ICT4D is not just about technology or about development; it is also about politics, social behaviors, sociological equilibrium, anthropology and communities.
I urge everyone that is interested in any of the topic mentioned above to visit the eTransform website and add their comments on the reports. Since it is the first time that this kind of process is being conduct in such an open way (according to my knowledge, but happy to know if there are other cases), I think it is important to participate and to contribute to the drafting or useful recommendations for policymakers in Africa.
Providing Professional Development to Academics: The Makerere E-Learning Experience
Crossposted from edutechdebate.org
Introduction
Technology has been a key driver to educational innovation in a number of Higher Educational Institutions. Makerere University in Uganda has been at the forefront of providing and implementing Online Learning through various initiatives it has undertaken since 1998. This mode of education was first introduced by the World Bank, through its African Virtual University (AVU) project, that worked with Makerere as a Partner Institution. The experiences and lessons have enabled the University adapt to the changes within its context.
Emerging trends and best practices
There are emerging trends in ICT usage which can be utilised in the various segments of the Education spectrum.
Ubiquity
The growing ubiquity of mobile devices has provided opportunities for their use in education. The expansion of Smart phone growth in all areas has given rise to more educational opportunities in teaching, learning, supervision and assessment, in the process expanding ICT applicability.
Affordability
In the last few years, there has been a growing interest in lowering the costs of connectivity of telecommunication services to a reasonable level. Competition in the sector has offered more people access and utilization of these services. Outside voice transmission, there are now provisions of banking services, payment of rates and utilities, dissemination of results, electronic applications and many others.
Richness
The mix of digital educational resources has enabled various affordances to be explored. The internet, the mobile phones, the podcasters, Web 2.0 tools are some of the resources which have eased content delivery. This richness allows for users to adapt and use them in education and other sectors.
Opportunities and Challenges
Foremost has been the Development Partners’ willingness and contribution in supporting various initiatives, either in terms of infrastructural development, research, capacity building or piloting emerging online teaching methods. They have been particularly amiable towards ICT related projects. Their role has accelerated Makerere’s rate of adoption and adaptation.
Secondly, the staff members went for further studies or attended workshops outside the country and got exposed to some of the online tools like Web 2.0. On their return, they shared, exposed their colleagues in their use and used them in their teaching, research or in supervision.
Thirdly the proliferation of several affordable mobile devices in the country has created opportunities for inclusion of multimedia content towards teaching, learning and research, in the process enhancing both the lecturers’ and students’ abilities.
However, there have been several challenges in the implementation of Online learning. Foremost has been the slow pace of its full integration in the University system due to the restrictive budgetary allocation. This has affected the rate of implementation of online activities.
The bulk of support has tended to come from Development Partners who have ensured that online activities are functional. The University needs to provide a conducive environment for e-learning support to keep abreast with the current educational trends. This could be in terms of specialized equipment, acquisition of software required for the design of electronic content and a commitment to build the necessary capacity for staff to use it in the preparation of their content.
Secondly, the readiness of academic staff to participate in electronic learning is still wanting despite training over 30% of the lecturers since 2005. Most of those trained never translate their training into developing online courses either as a result of a fixed mind set or fear of extra workload. Presently there are only about 30% of total courses created in the system which can be said to be active.
Thirdly, like most Sub Saharan African countries, the use of ICT in Uganda is still new, rare, and prevalent to a specific age group. Unfortunately, that age group is not at decision making level which makes it difficult for them to make or influence policy. In a recent PHEA (Partnership for Higher Education in Africa) ICT study, usage of ICT was more prevalent among the Lecturers and below than the Lecturers and above categories. Most lecturers are stuck with the chalk and talk teaching method with very low adaptation rate. Sensitization and some motivational methods could be used to reward early adapters.
Fourthly, there is the widespread challenge in accessing and using Internet, despite the Seacom cable promise. While accessibility is intermittent, the regular power outage has not helped the situation either. To date there are many students who cannot activate their emails and usually find it difficult to get around the system despite being given direction by their lecturers. This is either due to a phobia or lack of skills which need to be addressed.
Provision of Content
Most of the content in the LMS is not interactive. A number of lecturers have tended to use the system as a repository rather than as a learning tool. This lack of integration into the teaching process does not encourage students to be enthusiastic about this mode of learning. To date, only 50 courses have been designed and quality assured by pedagogical experts and is being used as model courses. Despite this, a lot needs to be done to reach a level where it is appreciated as fully online courses.
There is need to train more people to handle student support otherwise many who are interested might be put off. The support should be in form of educational counsellors, with empathy and capacity to handle online student frustration.
Furthermore, online support requires much time to be spent on students. This has raised motivational concern from lecturers especially during training. Devising a reward scheme would motivate those involved in the delivery of online content.
Finally, assessment methods have been contentious in terms of inadequacy and policy. There is need to design multiple assessment methods to ensure that trust is built in the entire online process. A well thought out approach needs to be used for its success.
Due to slow internet, streaming and buffering of online sessions and downloading session modules is difficult. This is compounded by factors like power failure and system malfunctioning. In addition, the software associated with online learning requires minimum computer specifications. Its absence, and the large number of people accessing the services, often causes the system to crash. There is need to fit the Institution’s requirements with user capabilities to ensure that online learning is effective.
Lastly, a strong ICT team is needed to support, and make regular system updates to safeguard against intruders and sustain a seamless system. Presently, there is no dedicated team to do so although this falls within the ICT Support Directorate’s mandate.
Reflections
There are a number of questions which require some answers. For instance, there has been an increase in the use of social networks especially among the students in the university. It is acknowledged that these networks increase collaboration and team work. Within our own context, how much of it can be incorporated in Teaching and Learning especially as there are many lecturers who are not very keen to join these networks? How much creativity does it promote given that most of the students use it for social relations?
In most institutions the use of computers has been relegated to computer literacy (using MS office). This is a common phenomenon in most educational institutions. How much ICT can be integrated in teaching and learning (where technology facilitates learning across the curriculum)?
Of more concern is the present disparity in access and use of ICTs in education. Is it likely to widen divisions along economic, social, cultural, geographic, and gender lines?
Recommendations
I would like to make four recommendations arising from the Makerere experience. Firstly, there is need for ICT policy to be formulated at various levels, for primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. The policy should spell out the road map on how ICT is integrated into education and the role each stakeholder should play in the delivery of content. This will assist many educational institutions including a number of Universities in Uganda.
Secondly, the Intellectual Property Laws need to be well articulated and publicized in view of the online resources which are currently developed under Creative Commons license. Many people in Uganda are not aware of this alternative license scheme and are therefore reluctant to upload their content for public consumption.
Thirdly, the lack of Quality Assurance Framework for Online Education in Sub Saharan Africa is a very serious matter. There is need for an urgent and concerted effort to have this in place if we have to have quality digital learning environment.
Lastly we need to identify champions who are prepared to take Online Education to the next level. In doing this we need to ensure there are adequate ICT facilities in selected tertiary institutions for students and teachers to use. This can be followed by identifying the actual people who are ready to take this process to the next level. The resultant effect will have a multiplier effect and ensure that more people are aware of the potential benefits of ICT in education.
What are the Key Priorities of ICTs in Africa?
This was the question for working groups at the eTransform Africa workshop. Experts from various ICT sectors discussed their findings from their research and key priorities of ICTs in their sector. The results are recorded in these short videos.
Health sector - presented by Tim Kelly (World Bank)
Trade and Regional Integration - presented by Enock Yonazi (AFDB)
Local ICT Sector - presented by Javier Ewing (Excelsior)
Agriculture - presented by Omri Van Zyl (Deliotte)
Climate Change and ICT - presented by Anahi Ayala Iacucci
Public Services - presented by George Ahthew, (SADC)
Financial Services - presented by Dr. Abu Dafalla Sufian (COMESA)
Education - presented by Dr. Towela Nyirenda Jere (NEPAD)
Silicon Savanna: Mobile Phones Transform Africa (article from Time Magazine)
From the Time magazine:
"Just as African bloggers have joined the global conversation, Africa's tech developers are joining the global marketplace. The next killer piece of code is as likely to be written in Africa as anywhere else. Amazon's revolutionary cloud-computing platform, which allows users to rent varying amounts of virtual computer capacity on which to build applications, was developed in Cape Town. Parsonson, 42, whose Teraco built three data centers in two years in South Africa and is erecting two more in Nigeria and Kenya, says he is witnessing an online explosion faster and bigger than at any other time in the Web's short history. "There is," he says, "a lot going on." Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2080702,00.html#ixzz1Rotkzhca
Welcome to eTransform Africa.
This site is a cooperation between the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the African Union to research on information and communication technologies (ICTs) in different sectors of the African economy.
The Transformational Use of ICTs: Summary of Study Outcomes (Download PDF)
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RECENT COMMENTS
Demeke Tesfaye
Dears I am following attentively your effective task . Here I would like to say something
Team
Each sector analysis has a focus on only a selection of African countries. We could not cover
Anonymous
In Annexure Section 3.1 is there a reason why Lesotho is missing from the list of African
ICT4D+AFRICAMORE
Obama: We will take advantage of mobile revolution in Africa to address food security @G8 #Food security @ict4d
@BarackObama: We're going to fast track agriculture projects+use mobile revolution in #africa to deliver better services #globalag #ict4d
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