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Archive for the ‘ICT4D’ Category

Does ‘open’ equal ‘accessible’?

Posted in accountability, development, El Salvador, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, open data, open development, open government, open knowledge, participation, politics, social justice, social media, transparency, wait... what?, youth, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

OK Festival is in full swing here in Helsinki, and if today is anything like the past two days, it will be full of information and exchange on everything “open.”

A number of us have been working hard to pull together the Open Development Stream, which started yesterday and which followed very nicely on Tuesday’s fantastic series of panels on Transparency and Accountability (with a heavy focus on the Open Government Partnership and Open Data) and the Open Data Journalism and Visualization streams.

Here’s a quick Storify summary of yesterday’s last Open Development session “Taking it Local: 10 ways to make ‘open’ relevant in low resource or marginalized contexts,” It was moderated by Soren Gigler from the World Bank’s Innovation for Governance Team and included superb group of panelists:  David Rodriguez, Michael Gurstein, Huy Eng, Philip Thigo, and Barbara Birungi.

For the session, my colleagues David and Max Rodriguez from Plan El Salvador did some really great short videos around transparency, internet access, connectivity and related topics and how they are perceived and lived out in rural communities where they are working.

This first video with Marco Rodriguez (he’s also on Twitter), the Sub-Secretary of Transparency for the Government of El Salvador, is just a small example of some of the realities around “open” and accessibility, and the challenges of engaging every day people in some of the initiatives we are talking about here at OK Festival. (Not to mention it and the other videos with Marco and others have a number of fantastic metaphors and soundbites!)

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11 points on strengthening local capacity to use new ICTs for monitoring and evaluation

Posted in accountability, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, monitoring and evaluation, technology salon, tagged , , , , , , , on September 3, 2012| 5 Comments »

New technologies are changing the nature of monitoring and evaluation, as discussed in our previous Salon on the use of ICTs in M&E. However, the use of new technologies in M&E efforts can seem daunting or irrelevant to those working in low resource settings, especially if there is little experience or low existing capacity with these new tools and approaches.

What is the role of donors and other intermediaries in strengthening local capacity in communities and development partners to use new technologies to enhance monitoring and evaluation efforts?

On August 30, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Community Systems Foundation (CSF) joined up with the Technology Salon NYC to host the second in a series of 3 Salons on the use of ICTs in monitoring and evaluating development outcomes and to discuss just this question. Our lead discussants were: Revati Prasad from Internews, Tom O’Connell from UNICEF and Jake Watson from the International Rescue Committee. (Thanks Jake for stepping in at the last minute!)

We started off with the comment that “Many of us are faced with the “I” word – in other words, having to demonstrate impact on the ground. But how can we do that if we are 4 levels removed from where change is happening?” How can organizations and donors or those sitting in offices in Washington DC or New York City support grantees and local offices to feed back more quickly and more accurately? From this question, the conversation flowed into a number of directions and suggestions.

1) Determine what works locally

Donor shouldn’t be coming in to say “here’s what works.” Instead, they should be creating local environments for innovation. Rather than pushing things down to people, we need to start thinking from the eyes of the community and incorporate that into how we think and what we do. One participant confirmed that idea with a concrete example. “We went in with ideas – wouldn’t SMS be great… but it became clear that SMS was not the right tool, it was voice. So we worked to establish a hotline. This has connected [the population] with services, it also connects with a database that came from [their] own needs and it tracks what they want to track.” As discussed in the last Salon, however, incentive and motivation are critical. “Early on, even though indicators were set by the community, there was no direct incentive to report.” Once the mentioned call center connected the reporting to access to services, people were more motivated to report.

2) Produce local, not national-level information

If you want to leverage technology for local decision-making, you need local level information, not broad national level information. You also need to recognize that the data will be messy. As one participant said, we need to get away from the idea of imperfect data, and instead think: is the information good enough to enable us to reach that child who wasn’t reached before? We need to stop thinking of knowledge as discrete chunks that endure for 3-4 years. We are actually processing information all the time. We can help managers to think of information as something to filter and use constantly and we can help them with tools to filter information, create simpler dashboards, see bottlenecks, and combine different channels of information to make decisions.

3) Remember why you are using ICTs in M&E

We should be doing M&E in order to achieve better results and leveraging technologies to achieve better impact for communities. Often, however, we end up doing it for the donor. “Donors get really excited about this multicolored thing with 50,000 graphs, but the guy on the ground doesn’t use a bit of it. We need to let go.” commented one participant. “I don’t need to know what the district manager knows. I need to know that he or she has a system in place that works for him or her. My job is to support local staff to have that system working. We need to focus on helping people do their jobs.”

4) Excel might be your ‘killer app’

Worldwide, the range of capacities is huge. Sometimes ICT sounds very sexy, but the greatest success might be teaching people how to use Excel, how to use databases to track human rights violations and domestic violence or setting up a front-end and a data entry system in a local language.

5) Technology capacity doesn’t equal M&E capacity

One participant noted that her organization is working with a technology hub that has very good tech skills but lacks capacity in development and M&E. Their work over the past year has been less about using technology and more about working with the hub to develop these other capacities: how to conduct focus groups, surveys, network analysis, developing toolkits and guides. There’s often excitement on the ground – ‘We can get data in 48 hours! Wow! Let’s go!’ However creating good M&E surveys to be used via technology tools is difficult. One participant expressed that finding local expertise in this area is not easy, especially considering staff turnover. “We don’t always have M&E experts on the ground.” In addition, “there is an art to polls and survey trees, especially when trying to take them from English into other languages. How do you write a primer for staff to create meaningful questions.”

6) Find the best level for ICTs to support the process

ICTs are not always the best tool at the community or district level, given issues of access, literacy, capacity, connection, electricity, etc., but participants mentioned working in blended ways, eg., doing traditional data collection and using ICTs to analyze the data, compile it, produce localized reports, and working with the community to interpret the information for better decision-making. Others use hand-drawn maps, examine issues from the community angle and then incorporate that into digital literacy work and expression work, using new technology tools to tell and document the communities’ stories.

7) Discover the shadow systems and edge of network

One participant noted that people will comply and they will move data through the system as requested from on high, but they simultaneously develop their own ways of tracking information that are actually useful to them. By discovering these ‘shadow systems’, you can see what is really useful. This ‘edge of network’ is where people with whom headquarters doesn’t have contact live and work. We rely on much of their information to build M&E systems yet we don’t consult and work with them often enough. Understanding this ‘edge of network’ is critical to designing and developing good M&E systems and supporting local level M&E for better information and decision-making.

8 ) The devil is in the details

There are many M&E tools to choose from and each has its pros and cons. Participants mentioned KoBo, RapidSMS, Nokia Data Gathering, FrontlineSMS and Episurveyor. While there is a benefit to getting more clean data and getting it in real-time, there will always be post-processing tasks. The data can, however, be thrown on a dashboard for better decision-making. Challenges exist, however. For example, in Haiti, as one participant commented, there is a 10% electrification rate, so solar is required. “It’s difficult to get a local number with Clickatell [an SMS gateway]; you can only get an international number. But getting a local number is very complicated. If you go that route, you need a project coordinator. And if you are using SMS, how do you top off the beneficiaries so that they can reply? The few pennies it costs for people to reply are a deterrent. Yet working with telecom providers is very time-consuming and expensive in any country. Training local staff is an issue – trying to train everyone on the ICT package that you are giving them. You can’t take anything for granted. People usually don’t have experience with these systems.” Literacy is another stumbling block, so some organizations are looking at Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and trying to build a way for it to be rapidly deployed.

9) Who is the M&E for?

Results are one thing, but as one participant noted, “part of results measuring means engaging communities in saying whether the results are good for them.” Another participant commented that Ushahidi maps are great and donors love them. But in CAR, for example, there is 1% internet penetration and maybe 9% of the people text. “If you are creating a crisis map about the incidence of violence, your humanitarian actors may access it, it may improve service delivery, but it is in no way useful for people on the ground. There is reliance on technology, but how to make it useful for local communities is still the big question…. It’s hard to talk about citizen engagement and citizen awareness if you are not reaching citizens because they don’t have access to technology.” And “what about the opportunity cost for the poor? ”asked one participant. “Time is restricted. CSOs push things down to the people least able to use the time for participation. There is a cost to participation, yet we assume participation is a global good. The poorest are really scraping for time and resources.  ‘Who is the data for?’ is still a huge question. Often it’s ‘here’s what we’re going to do for you’ rather than meeting with people first, asking what’s wrong, then listening and asking what they would like to do about it, and listening some more.”

10) Reaching the ‘unreachable’

Reaching and engaging the poorest is still difficult, and the truly unreached will require very different approaches. “We’re really very much spoke to hub,” said one participant, “This is not enough. How can we innovate and resolve this.” Another emphasized the need to find out who’s not part of the conversation, who is left out or not present when these community discussions take place. “You might find out that adolescent girls with mobility issues are not there. You can ask those with whom you are consulting if they know of someone who is not at the meeting. You need to figure out how to reach the invisible members of the community.”  However, as noted, “we also have to protect them. Sometimes identifying people can expose them. There is no clear answer.”

11) Innovation or building on what’s already there?

So will INGOs and donors continue to try to adapt old survey ideas to new technology tools? And will this approach survive much longer? “Aren’t we mostly looking for information that we can act on? Are we going to keep sending teams out all the time or will we begin to work with information we can access differently? Can we release ourselves from that dependence on survey teams?” Some felt that ‘data exhaust’ might be one way of getting information differently; for example a mode like Google Flu Trends. But others noted the difficulty of getting information from non-online populations, who are the majority. In addition, with these new ICT-based methods, there is still a question about representativeness and coverage. Integrated approaches where ICTs are married with traditional methods seem to be the key. This begs the question: “Is innovation really better than building up what’s already there?” as one participant commented. “We need to ask – does it add value? Is it better than what is already there? If it does add perceived value locally, then how do we ensure that it comes to some kind of result. We need to keep our eye on the results we want to achieve. We need to be more results-oriented and do reality checks. We need to constantly ask ourselves:  Are we listening to folks?”

In conclusion

There is much to think about in this emerging area of ICTs and Monitoring and Evaluation.  Join us for the third Salon in the series on October 17 where we’ll continue discussions. If you are not yet on the Technology Salon mailing list, you can sign up here. A summary of the first Salon in the series is here. (A summary of the October 17th Salon is here.)

Salons run by Chatham House Rule, thus no attribution has been made. 

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Storified Twitter Chat on ICTs and Children on the Move

Posted in children, CoM, development, disaster and emergencies, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, protection, wait... what?, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2012| 1 Comment »

On August 14, @zehrarizvi and I co-hosted a Twitter chat on ways that ICTs can support and protect “children on the move,” eg., children and youth who migrate, are displaced, or move around (or are moved). Background information on the issue and the research.

We discovered some new angles on the topic and some resources and studies that are out or will be coming out soon, for example an upcoming Girls Count study on Girls on the Move by Population Council, a UNHCR paper on ICTs and urban refugee protection in Cairo, and Amnesty’s Technology, People and Solutions work.

Thanks to everyone who participated – whether you were actively tweeting or just observing. We hope it was as useful to you all as it was to us! If you think of anything new to add, please tweet it using #CoMandICT or email me at linda.raftree [at] planusa.org.

Read the Storify version here (with a bonus picture of @chrisalbon holding up a ‘burner’ phone). Don’t know what a ‘burner’ phone is? Click and take a look.

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Twitter chat: Can ICTs support and protect displaced or migrating children?

Posted in children, CoM, communication for development, development, disaster and emergencies, GBV, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, protection, VAC, youth, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 10, 2012| 1 Comment »

On Tuesday, August 14, @zehrarizvi and I will be hosting a Twitter Chat on the topic of new technologies and ‘children on the move.’

As I wrote in an earlier post, I’m working on some research at Plan International USA, funded by Oak Foundation. The research aims to compile a ‘State of the Practice’ report that will include examples and case studies of current ICT use by, with, among and for ‘children on the move’; applicable cases and lessons learned from other sectors; gaps, challenges, areas where ICTs may pose new or additional risk; and remaining questions and challenges for future exploration and collaboration.

In talking about this research with Zehra (who is working at the Women’s Refugee Commission on a project related to the empowerment and protection of displaced adolescent girls, also supported by Oak) we realized we are both quite interested in exploring the role of new ICTs in supporting and protecting children who are migrating, displaced or otherwise ‘on the move’. So we decided to collaborate on the Twitter chat.

We’re hoping to gather ideas and perspectives from people working in the areas of migration, working children, displacement, child protection, conflict settings, environmental migration, diaspora communities, ICTs and other related areas.

Please join us on Tuesday, August 14 from 9-10.30 EST. The hashtag will be #CoMandICT.

We will cover 4 key questions in this first chat:

  • Which organizations are working in the area of child migration or ‘children on the move’ and what are they doing?
  • Are new technologies involved? If so, how? If not, why not?
  • Are there existing youth networks that could provide insight into how new technologies are used by children/youth on the move?
  • What else should we know about? What are we missing in our thinking about this project? Who should we talk with?

Tips for a good Twitter Chat:

  • Login 5 mins ahead of time and be ready with a short introduction (eg, “Joe Garcia here, child protection at XYZ in Malawi, managing cross-border project w working children” or “Cathy Kramer, ICT specialist working on mobile data privacy issues at TechTechTechieFirm”).
  • Tools like TweetChat which automatically add the hashtag and refresh often are helpful to keep up with the conversation.

We look forward to chatting on Tuesday August 14th at 9 am EST and welcome any questions or comments before then!

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12 tips on using ICTs for social monitoring and accountability

Posted in accountability, communication for development, development, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, open data, open development, open government, participation, politics, social media, technology salon, transparency, wait... what?, youth, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2012| 7 Comments »

New technologies are opening up all kinds of possibilities for improving monitoring and evaluation. From on-going feedback and crowd-sourced input to more structured digital data collection, to access to large data sets and improved data visualization, the field is changing quickly.

On August 7, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Community Systems Foundation (CSF) joined up with the Technology Salon NYC for the first in a series of 3 Salons on the use of ICTs in monitoring and evaluating development outcomes. Our lead discussants were: Erica Kochi from UNICEF Innovations; Steven Davenport from Development Gateway and John Toner from CSF.

This particular Salon focused on the use of ICTs for social monitoring (a.k.a. ‘beneficiary feedback loops’) and accountability. Below is a summary of the key points that emerged at the Salon.

1) Monitoring and evaluation is changing

M&E is not only about formal data collection and indicators anymore, one discussant commented, “It’s free form, it contains sentiment.” New ICT tools can help donors and governments plan better. SMS and other social monitoring tools provide an additional element to more formal information sources and can help capture the pulse of the population. Combinations of official data sets with SMS data provide new ways of looking at cross-sections of information. Visualizations and trend analysis can offer combinations of information for decision making. Social monitoring, however, can be a scary thing for large institutions. It can seem too uncontrolled or potentially conflictive. One way to ease into it is through “bounded” crowd-sourcing (eg., working with a defined and more ‘trusted’ subset of the public) until there is comfort with these kinds of feedback mechanisms.

2) People need to be motivated to participate in social monitoring efforts

Building a platform or establishing an SMS response tool is not enough. One key to a successful social monitoring effort is working with existing networks, groups and organizations and doing well-planned and executed outreach, for example, in the newspaper, on the radio and on television. Social monitoring can and should go beyond producing information for a particular project or program. It should create an ongoing dialogue between and among people and institutions, expanding on traditional monitoring efforts and becoming a catalyst for organizations or government to better communicate and engage with the community. SMS feedback loops need to be thought of in terms of a dialogue or a series of questions rather than a one-question survey. “People get really engaged when they are involved in back and forth conversation.” Offering prizes or other kinds of external motivation can spike participation rates but also can create expectations that affect or skew programs in the long run. Sustainable approaches need to be identified early on. Rewards can also lead to false reports and re-registering, and need to be carefully managed.

3) Responsiveness to citizen/participant feedback is critical

One way to help motivate individuals to participate in social monitoring is for governments or institutions to show that citizen/participant feedback elicits a response (eg., better delivery of public services).  “Incentives are good,” said one discussant, “But at the core, if you get interactive with users, you will start to see the responses. Then you’ll have a targeted group that you can turn to.” Responsiveness can be an issue, however if there is limited government or institutional interest, resourcing or capacity, so it’s important to work on both sides of the equation so that demand does not outstrip response capacity. Monitoring the responsiveness to citizen/participant feedback is also important. “Was there a response promised? Did it happen? Has it been verified? What was the quality of it?”

4) Privacy and protection are always a concern

Salon participants brought up concerns about privacy and protection, especially for more sensitive issues that can put those who provide feedback at risk. There are a number of good practices in the IT world for keeping data itself private, for example presenting it in aggregate form, only releasing certain data, and setting up controls over who can access different levels of data. However with crowd-sourcing or incident mapping there can be serious concerns for those who report or provide feedback. Program managers need to have a very good handle on the potential risks involved or they can cause unintended harm to participants. Consulting with participants to better understand the context is a good idea.

5) Inclusion needs to be purposeful

Getting a representative response via SMS-based feedback or other social monitoring tools is not always easy. Mandatory ratios of male and female, age groups or other aspects can help ensure better representation. Different districts can be sampled in an effort to ensure overall response is representative. “If not,” commented one presenter, “you’ll just get data from urban males.” Barriers to participation also need consideration, such as language; however, working in multiple languages becomes very complicated very quickly. One participant noted that it is important to monitor whether people from different groups or geographic areas understand survey questions in the same way, and to be able to fine-tune the system as it goes along. A key concern is reaching and including the most vulnerable with these new technologies. “Donors want new technology as a default, but I cannot reach the most excluded with technology right now,” commented a participant.

6) Information should be useful to and used by the community

In addition to ensuring inclusion of individuals and groups, communities need to be involved in the entire process. “We need to be sure we are not just extracting information,” mentioned one participant. Organizations should be asking: What information does the community want? How can they get it themselves or from us? How can we help communities to collect the information they need on their own or provide them with local, sustainable support to do so?

7) Be sure to use the right tools for the job

Character limitation can be an issue with SMS. Decision tree models, where one question prompts another question that takes the user down a variety of paths, are one way around the character limit. SMS is not good for incredibly in-depth surveys however; it is good for breadth not depth. It’s important to use SMS and other digital tools for what they are good for. Paper can often be a better tool, and there is no shame in using it. Discussants emphasized that one shouldn’t underestimate the challenges in working with Telco operators and making short codes. Building the SMS network infrastructure takes months. Social media is on the rise, so how do you channel that into the M&E conversation?

8) Broader evaluative questions need to be established for these initiatives

The purpose of including ICT in different initiatives needs to be clear. Goals and evaluative questions need to be established. Teams need to work together because no one person is likely to have the programmatic, ICT and evaluation skills needed for a successfully implemented and well-documented project. Programs that include ICTs need better documentation and evaluation overall, including cost-benefit analyses and comparative analyses with other potential tools that could be used for these and similar processes.

9) Technology is not automatically cheaper and easier

These processes remain very iterative; they are not ‘automated’ processes. Initial surveys can only show patterns. What is more interesting is back-and-forth dialogue with participants. As one discussant noted, staff still spend a lot of time combing through data and responses to find patterns and nuances within the details. There is still a cost to these projects. In one instance, the major project budget went into a communication campaign that was launched and the work with existing physical networks to get people to participate. Compared to traditional ways of doing things (face-to-face, for example) the cost of outreach is not so expensive, but integrating SMS and other technologies does not automatically mean that money will be saved. The cost of SMS is also large in these kinds of projects because in order to ensure participation, representation, and inclusion, SMS usually needs to be free for participants. Even with bulk rates, if the program is at massive scale, it’s quite expensive. When assuming that governments or local organizations will take over these projects at some point, this is a real consideration.

10) Solutions at huge scale are not feasible for most organizations 

Some participants commented that the UN and the Red Cross and similarly sized organizations are the only ones who can work at the level of scale discussed at the Salon. Not many agencies have the weight to influence governments or mobile service providers, and these negotiations are difficult even for large-scale organizations. It’s important to look at solutions that react and respond to what development organizations and local NGOs can do. “And what about localized tools that can be used at district level or village level? For example, localized tools for participatory budgeting?” asked a participant. “There are ways to link high tech and SMS with low tech, radio outreach, working with journalists, working with other tools,” commented others. “We need to talk more about these ways of reaching everyone. We need to think more about the role of intermediaries in building capacity for beneficiaries and development partners to do this better.”

11) New technology is not M&E magic

Even if you include new technology, successful initiatives require a team of people and need to be managed. There is no magic to doing translations or understanding the data – people are needed to put all this together, to understand it, to make it work. In addition, the tools covered at the Salon only collect one piece of the necessary information. “We have to be careful how we say things,” commented a discussant. We call it M&E, but it’s really ‘M’. We get confused with ourselves sometimes. What we are talking about today is monitoring results. Evaluation is how to take all that information then, and make an informed decision. It involves specialists and more information on top of this…” Another participant emphasized that SMS feedback can get at the symptoms but doesn’t seem to get at the root causes. Data needs to be triangulated and efforts made to address root causes and end users need to be involved.

12) Donors need to support adaptive design

Participants emphasized that those developing these programs, tools and systems need to be given space to try and to iterate, to use a process of adaptive design. Donors shouldn’t lock implementers into unsuitable design processes. A focused ‘ICT and Evaluation Fail Faire’ was suggested as a space for improving sharing and learning around ICTs and M&E. There is also learning to be shared from people involved in ICT projects that have scaled up. “We need to know what evidence is needed to scale up. There is excitement and investment, but not enough evidence,” it was concluded.

Our next Salon

Our next Salon in the series will take place on August 30th. It will focus on the role of intermediaries in building capacity for communities and development partners to use new technologies for monitoring and evaluation. We’ll be looking to discover good practices for advancing the use of ICTs in M&E in sustainable ways. Sign up for the Technology Salon mailing list here. [Update: A summary of the August 30 Salon is here.]

Salons run by Chatham House Rule, thus no attribution has been made. 

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How can ICTs support and protect children who migrate?

Posted in children, communication for development, development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, participation, protection, VAC, youth, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2012| 3 Comments »

Over the next year, I’ll be working on some research supported by Oak Foundation* that will look at the intersection of ICTs and children who migrate, a.k.a. ‘Children on the Move.’ As part of the research, we will be conducting a Twitter chat on Tuesday, August 14, at 9h EST and an ongoing online discussion hosted by New Tactics from October 17 through 23.

I hope interested folks will join to share experiences, good practice, challenges, thoughts and ideas on the intersection of ICTs and Children on the Move.

Background

Globally, some 214 million persons are international migrants. In addition, there are an estimated 740 million internal migrants according to the Global Movement for Children. Youth make up a large share of migrants from and in developing countries. Shifts in demographic factors, economic disparity, violent conflict and state failure, natural disasters, resource and environmental pressures, especially climate change, and lack of opportunities for education or employment mean that this number is likely to increase. About one-third of migrants from developing countries are between the ages of 12 and 25, including millions of children under the age of 18. (Stats from here.) “Yet, in debates on both child protection and migration, children who move are largely invisible. As a result, policy responses to support these vulnerable children are fragmented and inconsistent.”

Drawing from the African Movement of Working Children and Youth’s report “Early Exodus and Child Trafficking in West Africa: What progress have working children and youth made?” Sept 2008

‘Children on the Move’

Children migrate and move for a host of reasons. They may move on their own will to seek improved opportunities. They may be escaping violence and abuse in the home or at school or running away from an arranged marriage or other cultural practice. They may move due to a lack of opportunity, reduced resources, conflict, or disaster. They may want to get away from life in a refugee camp, or flee other kinds of hardship. They might migrate together with parents or other adults, or they may go alone or with others their age. The migration decision may be made by children themselves, or they may be encouraged by their parents.

In the past, the phenomenon of child mobility has not been seen in its full scope. Children who migrated were often automatically lumped in with those who were trafficked against their will. Programs to support children on the move have not always addressed the variety of motivations and situations. This lack of understanding of the myriad of reasons for children’s mobility has hindered efforts to support and protect them in their different scenarios. More recently efforts have been made to better understand children’s mobility, for example this fascinating 2008-2010 regional study project, supported by a broad platform of child protection agencies, documented and analyzed the many forms taken by the mobility of children and youths in West and Central Africa.

The term ‘Children on the Move‘ has been suggested to describe this group of children under the age of 18 who have aims, motivations and different life circumstances. This is a group which transcends categories. These children may be in a ‘pre-mobility, mobility or post-mobility’ situation (either having arrived to a destination or having returned home). They may also be ‘children left behind’ by their parents or guardians, who, without abandoning them, have emigrated for work within their country of residence or abroad. They may be stateless children, who also suffer the risks and vulnerabilities of mobility.

Risks Children on the Move face

When children move against their will, and /or in absence of protection services and actors, they become highly vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor, exploitation and other abuses. This vulnerability is present before they move, during their trip, once they reach a new destination or even after they return home, and therefore support and protection need to be considered from the time they are thinking about moving (or others are thinking about moving them), through the actual migration or ‘move’, upon their arrival, and in the case of their return. In addition, some children may be involved in a series of migrations or they may migrate seasonally. “During movement, a child can float from one sub category to the other. For example, an internally displaced child can be recruited by armed forces or moved across borders for the purpose of exploitation. The risks and opportunities differ per trajectory and conditions of movement,” according to the CoM website.

Captured from “Best practices in the fight against early exodus and child trafficking” as printed in the African Movement of Working Children and Youth’s “Early Exodus and Child Trafficking in West Africa: What progress have working children and youth made?” report, Sept 2008.

Children who migrate often face discrimination and marginalization due to beliefs and policies that treat migration as a problem and children who migrate as criminals, and therefore a great deal of work needs to be done to change perceptions and increase societal awareness around the situation of children on the move. Protecting children and reducing their risk of exploitation is a mandate, regardless of the reasons for which they move or migrate.

A systemic approach to protection

In order to improve support for and protection of children on the move, it’s important to look at the situation holistically and systemically and to include the aforementioned different phases of mobility. In addition, several areas need consideration, including children’s own needs and rights; children’s self-protection; community-based protection; government responsibilities and social services; advocacy and public policy and so on. Duty bearers and donors need to improve coordination across silos and borders in order to get better at information exchange, research and data analysis; the creation of prevention and awareness strategies and programs; monitoring actions during all stages; and feedback mechanisms and accountability. (See the proceedings from the CoM Conference for more details.)

How can ICTs help?

Alongside the growth in children’s mobility, access to new technologies, specifically the mobile phone, has exploded. Yet most often, when child protection and ICTs are mentioned in the same sentence, it is with regard to cyber security and protecting children from the Internet or potential on-line predators.

ICTs are playing a huge role in connecting diaspora with those ‘back home.’  The question arises: How are or how could ICTs be enhancing child protection initiatives and supporting children on the move.

The positive and empowering role of ICTs to support children’s self-protection, improve information and communication via new technology tools and enhance systemic approaches to risk reduction has not been fully developed with regard to child protection in its broader sense, or with regard to child mobility and child protection.

The research 

The research will aim to compile a ‘State of the Practice’ report that will include examples and case studies of current ICT use by, with, among and for CoM; applicable cases and lessons learned from other sectors; gaps, challenges, areas where ICTs may pose new or additional risk; and remaining questions and challenges for future exploration and collaboration.

Certainly new questions, frameworks and areas to explore will arise along the way, but at present, questions include:

  • What needs do children have in different categories and stages of mobility and how are these being (or how could they be) enhanced via better use of new ICTs?
  • Which new technologies are already accessible and being used by various stakeholders (e.g. children, parents and caretakers, intermediaries, broader communities, local child protection committees and ‘safe houses’, local institutions, social workers, experts, civil servants, governments, national and international NGOs, local and national law enforcement agencies), especially children, adolescents and youth; during pre-mobility, mobility and post-mobility, and upon return, endogenous or institutional, and for what purpose or to what end?
  • What information and communication systems are currently in use at child and family, community, district, national, transnational /regional and global levels for supporting or protecting children on the move and can these systems be improved, promoted or better accessed using new ICTs such as mobile phones?
  • Are there existing scalable, replicable or adaptable examples of the use of ICTs in this area we can learn from? What were the successes, challenges, failures and lessons/good practices?
  • Can new ICTs support communication for development (C4D) approaches and models to help children on the move protect themselves, inform them of available support, and/or change broader societal attitudes toward migrating children to more positive and supportive ones?
  • What can we learn from how ICTs are being used in other areas (health, human rights monitoring, data gathering / tracking, early warning systems, disasters and emergencies)? Which of these might lend themselves to use with, for, among and by children on the move? Are there relevant evaluations or case studies we can look at and learn from?
  • What are the specific challenges and risks in terms of children on the move that need special attention and exploration when designing programs or eco-systems that integrate ICTs? Security? Privacy? Connectivity? Cost? Context? Sustainability? Feasibility?
  • Where do we take it from here (what needs to happen next)?

Please join us for the Twitter chat on August 14 at 9 a.m. EST.  We’ll be using the hashtag #CoMandICT for the discussion and to keep track of future Twitter conversations on this topic. Stay tuned here at Wait… What? or contact me @meowtree or by email for more information.

Please also consider joining the broader discussion on “Empowering Communities with Technology Tools to Protect Children” the week of October 17-23 hosted by our friends over at New Tactics.

Some related resources:

The excellent 2008 report by the African Movement of Working Children and Youth: Early Exodus and Child Trafficking in West Africa: What progress have working children and youth made? 

The AMWCY’s 2009 report “From the gong gong to ICTs“

The fascinating study by a consortium of child protection groups on Child Mobility in West and Central Africa.

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*This work is supported through a grant from Oak Foundation to Plan International USA.

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Personas como David

Posted in activism, C4D, communication for development, development, El Salvador, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, participation, TIC, wait... what?, youth, tagged , , , , , , , on July 19, 2012| 1 Comment »

English version here

A menudo, en el sector de las ONGs, se discute cómo podemos integrar de una mejor manera, las TICs en el proceso de desarrollo de las comunidades. Para mí, este video muestra una de las mejores maneras para lograrlo: contratar a personas como David.

Contratar gente joven y que provienen de las comunidades, personas que entiendan las realidades locales y que además son apasionados/as por mejorar las cosas de su entorno y tienen ganas de hacer cosas nuevas. Contratar personas no pretenciosas, personas que escuchan y que preguntan cuando no tienen la respuesta.

Hay que contratar a personas curiosas, que buscan información y están llenas de motivación propia. Aquellas que no tienen miedo al trabajo duro y que sienten la necesidad de tomar riesgos y además, no le  temen a la posibilidad de fallar. Hay que contratar gente con chispa creativa. Aquellas personas que saben trabajar en equipo, colaborar con otros y aprender de las personas a su alrededor.

Se debe contratar gente joven, que entiendan y usen las nuevas tecnologías y que pasen suficiente tiempo fuera de la oficina para saber cómo se pueden utilizar las TICs como herramienta en el desarrollo y/o en circunstancias difíciles.

Para eso hay que contratar gente como David. Pero no basta solo contratarla.

Una vez contratada, se debe asegurar que tengan las condiciones para crecer y logar su plenitud.

También se debe garantizar que tengan acceso a oportunidades, que participan en reuniones y eventos internos y externos, locales, regionales y globales para compartir sus conocimientos y así  aprender y para hacer contactos y conexiones.

A las personas como David se debe premiarlas, honrarlas y felicitarlas regularmente, aún si están muy ocupadas cumpliendo su trabajo, fuera de la autopromoción y de la política de la oficina.

Se debe asegurar que personas como David, tengan mentores y gerentes que les quiten las barreras para que puedan avanzar con su trabajo y en su desarrollo profesional. Escucharlas y respetarlas. Si, también debe cuestionárseles – pero con la certeza que ellas tienen la capacidad de inventar ideas que pueden funcionar, aún si no son las ideas que usted hubiera inventado. Los mentores y gerentes no deben sentirse amenazados por las personas como David, cuando sepan más que usted sobre algo. Todos y todas pueden aprender del uno al otro si el espacio para el diálogo es abierto y sincero.

Las personas como David son el presente y el futuro de los procesos del desarrollo.

Por las personas como David, me cuesta dar consejos de carrera a las personas en los EEUU que buscan trabajo en otros países. Preferia ver a las personas como David ocupando estos puestos.

David recién ganó el premio del Empleado Nuevo con Mayor Promesa en la región de las Américas durante los Premios Globales de Plan Internacional. Sigue a David al @2drodriguez y aprende más sobre los proyectos que esta hacienda aca: Mis Derechos Ante Desastres, en la pagina del proyecto de Facebook, o al @deantede.

(Gracias a Max Rodriguez por revisar y corregir mi traducción del post)

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People like David

Posted in activism, C4D, children, climate, communication for development, development, disaster and emergencies, El Salvador, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, smart aid, social media, TIC, wait... what?, youth, youth media, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2012| 4 Comments »

In the INGO sector, we often discuss ways that development organizations can better bridge development and ICTs. If you ask me, this video shows one of the best ways to achieve it: Hire people like David.

Hire young, local folks who have spent time in communities, who understand local realities, who are passionate about helping make things better, and who are hungry to do new things that make sense. Hire people who are humble; people who listen and who ask questions when they don’t know the answer.

Hire people who are curious, who seek out information, who are self starters, and who are not afraid to work hard, to try, to take risks and to fail. Hire people with creative fire who know how to work in a team, how to collaborate with others and how to learn from those around them. Hire young people who use and understand new technologies and who spend enough time out of the office to know how they can realistically be applied to development issues in difficult settings.

Hire people like David.

But don’t only hire them.

Once you hire them, make sure that they have the conditions to thrive and achieve to their fullest.

Make sure people like David have access to opportunities. Make sure that they get to attend regional and global internal and external meetings to share what they know, to learn, and to make contacts and connections.

Notice people like David. Reward them, honor them, and congratulate them regularly, even if they are too busy getting the job done to spend lots of time on self-promotion or office politics.

Make sure people like David have mentors and managers who can take roadblocks out of their way. Listen to them. Respect them. Question them, yes, but do so with the honest belief that they have the capacity to come up with ideas that can work even if they are not the ideas you would have come up with. Don’t feel threatened by people like David when they know more than you do about something. We can all learn from each other if the space for dialogue is open and sincere.

People like David are the present and future of development efforts.

People like David are the reason I have a hard time giving career advice to folks in the US who are looking for jobs overseas. I’d rather see people like David in these positions.

David recently won the “Most Promising Newcomer” award for the Americas region during Plan International’s Global Awards. Follow David at @2drodriguez and learn more about what he’s up to at the website Mis Derechos Ante Desastres (My Rights in the Face of a Disaster), the project Facebook page, or at @deantede.

**Version Español

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Taking open data offline (and back again)

Posted in accountability, development, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, open data, open development, open government, open knowledge, participation, politics, social media, transparency, wait... what?, tagged , , , , , , , on July 16, 2012| 4 Comments »

I spent last week at the International Open Government Data Conference (IOGDC), put on by Data.gov, the World Bank Open Data Initiative and the Open Development Technology Alliance. For a full overview, watch some of the presentations and read the liveblog.

A point made by several presenters and panelists is that the field has advanced quite a bit in terms of getting data open, and that what really matters now is what people are doing with the data to improve and/or change things.

One of the keynoters, David Eaves, for example, commented “the conferences we organize have got to talk less and less about how to get data open and have to start talking more about how do we use data to drive public policy objectives. I’m hoping the next International Open Government Data Conference will have an increasing number of presentations by citizens, non-profits and other outsiders [who] are using open data to drive their agenda, and how public servants are using open data strategically to drive to a[n] outcome.” 

There were some great anecdotal examples throughout the conference of how open data are having impact, especially in 4 key areas:

  1. economic growth/entrepreneurship
  2. transparency, accountability and governance
  3. improved resource allocation and provision of services
  4. connecting data dots and telling stories the public needs to know

There was also quite a bit of recognition that we need more evidence to back up the anecdotal success stories told around open data, and that it’s difficult to trace all the impact that open data are having because of the multiple and unintended impacts.

On the other hand, the question was raised: “is open data part of the public’s right to information“? Because if we conceive of open data as a right, the framework and conceptualization change as do, perhaps, the measures of success.

Several panelists mentioned some of the big challenges around engaging citizens to use open data for social change, especially in areas with less resources and low access to the Internet.

If one of the key next steps is engaging citizens in using open data, we all need to think more about how to overcome barriers like language, literacy, who owns and accesses devices, low education levels, low capacity to interpret data, information literacy, power and culture, apathy, lack of incentive and motivation for citizen engagement, and poor capacity of duty bearers/governments to respond to citizen demand. (For more on some of these common challenges and approaches to addressing them, see 15 thoughts on good governance programming with youth.)

On the last day of IOGDC we had the opportunity to suggest our own topics during Open Space. I suggested the topic “Taking Open Data Offline” because it seems that often when we imagine all the fantastic possibilities of open data, we forget how many people live in remote, rural areas (or urban areas with poor infrastructure) where there is no broadband and where many of the above-mentioned barriers are very high. (See a Storified summary of our conversation here: #IOGDCoffline.)

The solutions most often mentioned for getting data into the hands of ordinary citizens are Internet and mobile apps. Sometimes when I’m around open data folks, I do a double take because the common understanding of ‘infomediary’ is ‘the developer making the mobile app’. This seems to ignore that, as Jim Hendler noted during the IOGDC pre-conference, some 75% of the world’s population is still offline.

We need to expand the notion of ‘infomediary’ in these discussions to think about the range of people, media, organizations and institutions who can help close the gap between big data and the average person, both in terms of getting open data out to the public in digestible ways and in terms of connecting local knowledge, information needs, feedback and opinions of citizens back to big data. There will need to be a wide range of infomediaries using a number of different communication tools and channels in order to really make open data accessible and useful.

Though things are changing, the majority of folks in the world don’t yet have smart phones. In a sense, the ‘most marginalized’ could be defined as ‘those who don’t have mobile phones.’ And even people who do have phones may not choose to spend their scarce resources to access open data. Data that is available online may be in English or one of only a few major languages. Most people in most of the world don’t purchase data packages, they buy pre-paid air time. The majority don’t have a constant connection to the cloud but rather rely on intermittent Internet access, if at all.

In addition, in areas where education levels are low or data interpretation skills are not strong, people may not have the skills to make use of open data found online. So other communications tools, channels and methods need to be considered for making open data accessible to the broader public via different kinds of intermediaries and infomediaries, multi-direction information sharing channels, feedback loops and combinations of online/offline communication. People may even need support formulating the questions they want answered by open data, considering that open data can be a very abstract concept for those who are not familiar with the Internet and the use of data for critical analysis.

    https://twitter.com/prefontaine/status/223502308435165185

Some great ideas on how to use SMS in open data and open government and accountability work exist, such as Huduma, UReport, I Paid A Bribe, and more. Others are doing really smart thinking about how to transform open data into engaging media for a general audience through beautiful graphics that allow for deep analysis and comparison and that tell compelling stories that allow for a personal connection.

We need to think more, however, about how we can adapt these ideas to offline settings, how to learn from approaches and methods that have been around since the pre-Internet days, and how to successfully blend online-offline tools and contexts for a more inclusive reach and, one hopes, a wider and broader impact.

‘Popular Education’ and ‘Communication for Development (C4D)’ are two fields the open data movement could learn from in terms of including more remote or ‘marginalized’ populations in local, national and global conversations that may be generated through opening up data.

I remember being on a 10-hour ride to Accra one time from the Upper West Region of Ghana. The driver was listening to talk radio in a local language. At one point, someone was reading out a list. I couldn’t understand what was being said, but I could tell the list contained names of communities and districts. The list-reading went on for quite a long time. At one point, the driver cheered and pumped his fist. I asked what he was happy about and he explained that they were reading the list of where the government would be constructing schools and assigning teachers in the next year. His community was going to get a secondary school, and his children would not have to travel far now to continue their education. Radio is still one of the best tools for sharing information. Radio can be combined with activities like ‘Listening Clubs’ where groups gather to listen and discuss. Integrating SMS or call-in options make it possible for radio stations to interact more dynamically with listeners. Tools like FrontlineSMS Radio allow tracking, measuring and visualization of listener feedback.

I lived in El Salvador for the 1990s. Long and complicated Peace Accords were signed in 1992 after 12 years of civil war. A huge effort was made to ‘popularize’ the contents of the Peace Accords so that the whole country would know what the agreements were and so that people could hold the different entities accountable for implementing them. The contents of the Peace Accords were shared via comics, radio, public service announcements, and a number of other media that were adapted to different audiences. Local NGOs worked hard to educate the affected populations on the rights they could legally claim stemming from the Accords and to provide support in doing so.

When the Civil War ended in Guatemala a few years later, the same thing happened. Guatemala, however had the additional complication of 22 indigenous languages. Grassroots ‘popular education’ approaches in multiple languages were used by various groups across the country in an effort to ensure that no one was left out, to help develop ‘critical conscience’ and critical thinking around the implementation of the Peace Accords, and to involve the public in the work around the Truth Commission, which investigated allegations of human rights violations during the war and opened them to the public as part of the reconciliation process. Latin America (thanks to Paolo Freire and others) has a long history of  ‘popular education’ approaches and methods that can be tapped into and linked with open data. Open data can be every bit as complicated as the legalistic contents of the Peace Accords and it is likely that data that is eventually opened will link with issues (lack of political participation, land ownership patterns, corruption, political favoritism, poor accountability and widespread marginalization) that were the cause of conflict in past decades.

The Mural of the People / O Mural do Povo from Verdade in Mozambique. “The marvelous Mozambican public will attribute each year the ‘Made in Frelimo Oscar of Incompetence’…  The 2012 candidates are…”

In Mozambique, 75% of the population live on less than $1.25 a day. Newspapers costing between 45 and 75 cents are considered a luxury. The 20,000 issues of the free and widely circulated Verdade Newspaper, which comes out once a week, reach an estimated 400,000 people in Maputo and a few other cities as they are read and passed around to be re-read. Verdade reaches an additional audience via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and a ‘Mural of the People’ where the public can participate and contribute their thoughts and opinions old-school style — on a public chalkboard. The above February 7, 2012, mural, for example, encouraged the population to vote in the ‘Incompetence Oscars – Made in Frelimo [the current government party]’. Candidates for an Incompetence Oscar included the “Minister of Unfinished Public Works.” (More about Verdade here.) This combination of online and offline tools helps spread news and generate opinion and conversation on government performance and accountability.

Social accountability tools like community scorecards, participatory budget advocacy, social audits, participatory video, participatory theater and community mapping have all been used successfully in accountability and governance work and would be more appropriate tools in some cases than Internet and mobile apps to generate citizen engagement around open data. Combining new ICTs together with these well-established approaches can help take open data offline and bring community knowledge and opinions online, so that open data is not strictly a top-down thing and so that community knowledge and processes can be aggregated, added to or connected back to open data sets and more widely shared via the Internet (keeping in mind a community’s right also to not have their data shared).

A smart combination of information and communication tools – whether Internet, mobile apps, posters, print media, murals, song, drama, face-to-face, radio, video, comics, community bulletin boards, open community fora or others – and a bottom-up, consultative, ‘popular education’ approach to open data could really help open data reach a wider group of citizens and equip them not only with information but with a variety of channels through which to participate more broadly in the definition of the right questions to ask and a wider skill set to use open data to question power and push for more accountability and positive social change.

Related posts on Wait… What?:

ICTs, social media, local government and youth-led social audits

Digital mapping and governance: the stories behind the maps

What does ‘open knowledge’ have to do with ‘open development’?

15 thoughts on good governance programming with youth

Governance is *so* not boring

Young Citizens, Youth and Participatory Governance in Africa

A practitioners’ discussion on social accountability and youth participatory governance

Can ICTs support accountability and transparency in education?

Orgasmatron moments

Listening and feedback mechanisms

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USAID’s freshly updat[a]ed sites

Posted in accountability, development, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, open data, open development, open government, smart aid, transparency, wait... what?, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2012| 2 Comments »

USAID has been busy lately with a redesign and roll-out of the new USAID.gov.

You can now access first-generation interactive maps at the country level for 40 missions (see screen capture below).

Screen capture from http://map.usaid.gov/ on July 5, 2012.

In addition, as part of the USAID evaluation policy that ‘sets ambitious standards for the quality and transparency of evaluation to demonstrate results, generate evidence to inform decisions, promote learning and ensure accountability’ the page that houses the Development Evaluation Clearinghouse (DEC) has been revamped. You can now search 50 years of international aid records, submit reports, and ‘get social’ by sharing, rating, tagging and blogging. Introduction videos are available to help you get started.

Not only is there better looking and more accessible information on-line, you can get two mobile applications (available for iPhone and iPad):

  • The DEC mobile app provides access to a subset of USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) documents (recent evaluations).
  • The Portfolio Map mobile app allows you to browse the USAID portfolio for a subset of the countries in which USAID is working, access general country overviews at a glance and get more detailed information as needed.

In other news, alongside their own new website, on June 25th, 2012, USAID together with the Department of State announced publication of USAID’s foreign assistance obligation and expenditure data for Fiscal Year 2009-2011 on the Foreign Assistance Dashboard.

As explained during the DC Technology Salon on ‘How will IATI impact international development,’ the Dashboard is the US Government’s main tool for improving foreign aid transparency. It will play a key role in US Government reporting of foreign assistance data to the international community, one of the measures agreed on when the US Government signed onto the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) in November 2011.

According to the June 25th press release, ‘the Dashboard also has budget planning data for the Department of State and USAID, as well as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s foreign assistance budget planning, obligation, and expenditure data.  Data on the site can be manually queried, filtered, and downloaded by users for further analysis.

The Dashboard is designed to allow a range of stakeholders, including U.S. citizens, civil society organizations, Congress, U.S. Government agencies, donors, and partner country governments; to examine, research, and track foreign assistance data in an accessible and easy-to-understand format. It aims to allow users to explore the impact of U.S. foreign assistance funding by country, sector, initiative, and agency by presenting data in a standard and user-friendly way.

According to USAID, ‘as the lead agency in implementing U.S. foreign assistance activities around the world, the launch of USAID obligation and expenditure data on the Foreign Assistance Dashboard represents a significant step forward in the U.S. Government’s efforts to make foreign assistance more transparent.’ (For additional discussion on this point, see the summary post from the aforementioned Technology Salon.)

The Dashboard is currently in an early stage of development. The site eventually plans for the incorporation of ‘budget, financial, program, and performance data in a standard form from all U.S. Government agencies receiving or implementing foreign assistance, humanitarian, and/or development funds.’ (See the table below for an idea of what is currently done and what is coming up.)

For more information about the Dashboard, see the Top Ten Things You Should Know page.

With all this information being made more accessible to everyone, it will be interesting to see if and how it’s used by different people and institutions for different purposes, especially in terms of improving coordination, program planning, transparency, accountability and aid effectiveness.

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