[UgaBYTES] Discussion; Poverty Eradication and Financial Crisis- Are ICT4D playing a positive role in addressing these issues?

[Kiringai Kamau]

Sandra,

Poverty is complex to understand, which explains why it is difficult to
reduce, with or without technology. A major challenge to economists is to
define what poverty is. You will therefore have it addressed from a variety
of angles or metrics. If you use the finance metric, then you can talk of
the famous 'one dollar a day' as a standard. When you use the nutrition
metric, then you will have the number of kilo calories one must consume as
the standard etc. As such when you come up with a discussion on using ICT to
address poverty and the financial crisis, a number of assumptions will have
to be made.  My assumption is that the target beneficiaries of pro-poor
interventions affected by the financial crisis are not the poor that you
encounter in rural areas, but rather those that you encounter in policy
documents. There is always a variance in the two categories. Documents are
for reading by policy developers and their financiers, while the poor face
hunger and starvation and hardly get the resources targeted for them as we
read in the policy documents- there is no infrastructure to reach them and
no one bothers.

 

Having highlighted the foregoing, I feel confident that whatever I write
falls within the ambit of this discussion and hence feel comfortable
sympathising with economists when they seek to explain how some economies
manages to sustain in the face of so much mismanagement. Academic assessment
of the economic parameters just do not explain how poorly managed economies
never grind to a halt like was seen in the case of the American economy. Do
we have a study to read from this and evolve our ICT4D to suit a model that
is not internationally universal?

 

I lived in Kenya when the economy was supported by the micro-economy which
made non-sense of documented macro-economic standards. Very recently (may be
even now), the economy of Zimbabwe beat any logical reason on how such an
economy has managed to survive with an inflation rate that baffled even the
new-paper reporters that told the story!.

 

The line of argument here is that when looking at poverty; choose very
wisely what lenses you use to assess poverty is. The financial meltdown,
crisis or whatever baptismal name you give it, does affect the wealth
creating institutions that rely on external linkages. Most of the poor
rarely interact with the world outside their local area. If you wanted to
create wealth for those who are poor therefore, the choice of the solutions
is limited to what the affected, the poor can embrace. No external solution
can help address local poverty situations. Some ground work will have to be
done to define poverty, describe the approach to study it, then look at how
to design solutions to alleviate or ameliorate the same.

 

My experience is that the development sector has had so many models designed
'out there' on how to address poverty yet the only visible has been more
poverty with each dollar spent. We have seen more expatriate jobs and more
PhDs churned out of Africa and other developing economies than there have
been impact in addressing poverty. 

 

If ICT has to be used to address poverty, then the first step should be to
create a database of anti-poverty projects, the people responsible for
ensuring the achievement of outcomes and the outcomes that they realise. At
the beginning of the project, it would be desirable to specify which poverty
metrics are to be focused on. Performance of the project should be tied to
assessable parameters and the assessment undertaken by the beneficiaries
rather than consultants hired from the funders.

 

What I am trying to say is that the design of pro-poor programmes needs to
be undertaken with the beneficiaries in mind or in participation. It is
critical that such programmes be evolved around localised institutional
frameworks that promote value addition of local resources such as natural
resources, crops, or livestock. 

 

Designing of ICT4D initiatives should then be integrated into the
institutional frameworks and their design based on the collective action of
the pro-poor institutions with a view to help them aggregate their resources
for wealth creation. 

 

I have worked on microfinance models, their automation and now engaged with
agricultural value chains and I am convinced that no pro-poor solution works
better than when you integrate agricultural value addition to wealth
creation initiatives. I am definitely a champion of the integration of ICT4D
as exemplified by the growing number of producer cooperatives using my
technologies but the fights I always face from vested interests of donor
programmes seeking to oust our efforts have been awesome. 

 

Kiringai Kamau

Founder and Value Chain Analyst

VACID Africa

 

-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Sandra Nassali
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 12:56 PM
To: UgaBYTES
Subject: [UgaBYTES] Discussion; Poverty Eradication and Financial Crisis-
Are ICT4D playing a positive role in addressing these issues?

 

The elimination and ultimate eradication of poverty is one of the most

urgent and compelling goals for the world community today. Thus raising the

standard of living of the world's impoverished people is of paramount

priority to all, i.e. from individual level to community, country, region or

global level.

 

 

 ICTs are known and believed to play a pivotal role by helping to fill gaps

in local access to vital resources and information to enable individuals to

elevate themselves out of the poverty cycle. However, some of these

deliverables are not clear given the fact that current evidence shows that

they influence income disparities so in rapid economic growth situations,

the level of inequality is cushioned by expansion.

 

 

 Today. the whole world is being affected by the economic crunch. Though it

may not appear apparent, its real as we have witnessed big wigs in terms of

companies/organizations in the business world collapsing. The standards of

living are also declining everywhere and though ICT4D are meant to fight

such occurrences, some are being taken along the drain instead.

 

 

 The purpose of this thread is to identify ideas and suggestions from the

community on how telecentres/ ICT4D can contribute with clear deliverables

to progress on the issue of "*Poverty eradication and financial crisis*"

 

 

 Share with us your opinions.....we shall be glad to hear from you

 

 

 Thank you

-- 

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Sandra Nassali

Community Facilitator

UgaBYTES Initiative (www.ugabytes.org)

Telecentre.org  (www.telecentrecommunity.ning.com)

Plot 2218 Ggaba Road,

2nd Floor Kangave House

P.O. Box 6081 K'la

Email  snassali at ugabytes.org

chat    (skype)- n.sandra.

Tel      +256-414-370163

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