*iHub_ Research. Refugees United iHub Research and RU have crafted an exciting research project based around assessing RU's mobile WAP tool as well as the processes surrounding the use of the tool. Refugees United ... SPIDER M-Governance The Governance project launched in September 2011 and is an attempt to address the fact that the Kenyan government has been slow in providing adequate and quality services to its ... ICT Hubs (in-house) iHub Research is initiating a research series that will disaggregate the unique factors that make up ICT hubs in Africa (Afrilabs). Infographics (Ongoing) graphic visual displays of information, data or knowledge, so far, iHub Research has created infographics for Mobile... Mobile at the Base of the Pyramid Globally, there are 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2.50 a day (Kshs208.2). Internews Ghana Internews Nigeria Internews Kenya Refugees United Tech assessment of the RU mobile sign-up tracing tool.
Africa has the fastest growing middle class in the world. The numbers are compelling: Africa’s population explosion has seen its middle class population triple over the last three decades, to a whopping 313m people. In the report, The rise and rise of Africa’s middle class, Deloitte forecasts that the African middle class population will swell from 34.3% to 42% of the continent’s population by 2060. The report reveals that the African middle class is roughly the same size as the middle class populations of India and China. With at least 75% of their populations classified as middle class – defined as those spending between $2 and $20 per day – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Gabon have the highest concentration of middle class among their populations.
Tunisia tops the list, with a middle class that makes up 90% of its population. Check out this fascinating map from Deloitte to give you some idea about where the “middle-class” currently sits : The all important key for the map: Africa: Development Aid in a Changing World. The World Bank’s fund for the poorest, IDA, was created more than 50 years ago to meet an urgent need—to make sure the world’s most vulnerable have a real chance at a decent life. A lot has happened since then. With IDA’s help, hundreds of millions of people have escaped the vicious cycle of abject poverty—through the creation of jobs, access to clean water, food security, schools, roads, electricity.
In fact, for the first time ever, researchers found last year that the number of people living in absolute poverty—less than $1.25 day—dropped in every region of the world, from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.3 billion in 2008. IDA has worked relentlessly with poor countries to fight poverty in often very challenging circumstances. While we have made good, even remarkable progress on reducing poverty, the number of poor people living on less than $1.25 a day is still unacceptable.
Nor can we assume that development gains are here to stay. Now is not the time to disengage. Blogs » Lynne Featherstone. Here’s my article for Liberal Democrat News about my recent trip to Africa: I’ve recently returned to London from a visit of firsts: my first trip to Africa in my new role as Africa Minister in the Department for International Development – the first Liberal Democrat to hold any position in DFID, of which I’m incredibly honoured.
I travelled to South Sudan, the newest country in the world after gaining independence from Sudan in July 2011. The reason for this country being the destination for my first visit is it encompasses virtually everything DFID does and all the challenges the international community can face when trying to help a country get on its feet. First, health and education services in South Sudan are dismal and the impact on women and girls in particular is shocking. I visited an alternative education centre for women and girls and had lunch with a few of the students there. So South Sudan has its work cut out. NSN aims to make 1GB a day at $1 a day profitable for operators. By BiztechAfrica - Nov. 8, 2012, 2:30 p.m. Image: NSN’s Karri Kuoppamaki and Rufus Andrew. By BiztechAfrica With mobile data demand expected to top 1GB a day per user by the end of the decade, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) says it is focusing on enabling operators to deliver this profitably.
Rufus Andrew, MD of NSN SA, said at a media briefing in Johannesburg, South Africa, today that the company now focused its strategy on mobile broadband coupled with optical networks and customer experience management (CEM) “This is a sustainable strategy for us,” he said, “and now our competitors are all doing the same.” Karri Kuoppamaki, Chief Technology Officer (Africa) of NSN, said the company was bringing to market a range of solutions aimed at enabling operators to deliver on the rapidly increasing demand for data, but allowing them to do so profitably and without sacrificing quality. Tags liquidnet,nokiasiemensnetworks,nsn Virtualisation ‘frees up innovation budget’
Technology a pathway out of poverty. Social media and access to information and communication technology is a pathway out of poverty, according to new research. By Adam Cooke. Jean Louis Thomas of Haiti writes a text message to a friend. Many people living on less than $2/day already have access to a mobile phone. (Image courtesy of the Gates Foundation) It will take a century for a poor household to tweet its way out of poverty. This is one of the central findings of economist Prof Julian May, director of the Institute for Social Development at the University of the Western Cape, who released his study at the Towards Carnegie 3 conference in Cape Town recently.
“The finding is significant because it shows that a mobile phone on its own leads to an increase in income,” May told the conference which brought together the country’s top academics, government officials and NGOs to focus on strategies to overcome poverty and inequality. But mobile phones also allowed users to check on things like food prices. Project website | Euro-African Cooperation on ICT Research | 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT.
Welcome - Africa Open Data. African Green Revolution Forum 2012: technology for food security. Food Security, according to the World Food Summit of 1996, exists “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. This definition takes into account both physical and economic access, availability and use of food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences. In Europe and North America, people are increasingly becoming socially conscious to eat ethical – most times opting for “clean” pesticide-free food. In sub-Sahara Africa, however, where the food imports of most countries far outweigh local production levels, the ‘luxury’ of choosing what to eat is yet to gain momentum as people would rather dream of sufficiency in food availability. The introduction of appropriate water management systems to use as irrigation, increasing use of fertilizers and improved seeds and preserving natural resources are critical to securing a greener Africa, said Prof.
Www.agrforum. Open Data for Africa. Open data has the potential to take African development to new levels of success. The time has come for every African nation to provide the opportunity for citizens to understand more about their world. African governments have withheld information for too long. Honest data, even if it shows negative trends, is better than concealed data. Informed discussion between all levels of society is important. There’s no continent that needs Open Data more than Africa.” – Dr. It’s not just open data that is needed, but open data. Making data available is just the first step.
Critics denounce the lack of information to fight corruption (ie. officials’ wealth declarations have yet to be released), but the net result of open data is undeniably positive in the long term. A list of open data initiatives/programs in Africa makes it clear that more nations are learning the importance of the availability of knowledge. Official {Open Kenya} hundreds of searchable datasets and views opendata.go.ke. Spotlight on Africa - Mobile Statistics & Facts 2012. Africa: Fresh Blood for the Horn of Africa, but Can New Leaders Fix Old Problems? Johannesburg — You wait ages for a new leader in the Horn of Africa, and then two of them come along at once. SIMON ALLISON reports on Ethiopia's new prime minister and Somalia's new president, and the daunting challenges faced by both.
The Horn of Africa is a generally known as a region where leaders can settle down and make themselves comfortable in power. Look at Eritrea, where Isaias Afewerki has been president for nearly two decades and in charge for even longer. Or Djibouti, where Ismail Omar Guelleh assumed office in 1999 from his president-for-life uncle and looks all set to continue the family tradition. Then there's Ethiopia - before his death, Meles Zenawi was one of Africa's longest-serving heads of state. In this context, last week was momentous for the Horn of Africa, when not one but two new leaders were appointed. Secondly, in Ethiopia, the country's ruling party ushered in the Ethiopian New Year by finally settling on a successor to the departed Meles. Social media for empowerment – a guide for African climate change workers | Agile KM for me. The social media guide for African climate change practitioners After a couple of months of hard collective work on it, and after several other months of to-ing an fro-ing between AfricaAdapt and ILRI, the Social media guide for climate change practitioners in Africa is finally OUT!
The final version of the guide as a PDF doc is only 10 pages long (about 2000 words) and an easy reference for anyone not all too sure what social media are and how they can be used for climate change (and other) work.The complete version of the guide, as a wiki, is more comprehensive and is the object of this blog, as it really emphasises ways that social media can empower people, in this case particularly African climate change workers. Social media can indeed be an incredibly powerful way to mitigate imbalances between groups by pooling resources together – when the wisdom of the crowd turns into the power of the crowd.
What the social media guide offers, altogether Related blog posts: Like this: Seven ways mobile phones have changed lives in Africa. Mobile phone technology has grown significantly over the past decadeNigeria has close to 100M mobile phone lines, making it Africa's largest telecoms marketWe look at ways that mobile phones have changed lives in Africa Mobile phones have become an essential part of our everyday life. Through a special month-long series, "Our Mobile Society," we examine how phones and tablets are changing the way we live. Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- A little over a decade ago there were about 100,000 phone lines in Nigeria, mostly landlines run by the state-owned telecoms behemoth, NITEL. Today NITEL is dead, and Nigeria has close to 100 million mobile phone lines, making it Africa's largest telecoms market, according to statistics by the Nigerian Communications Commission.
Across the rest of the continent the trends are similar: between 2000 and 2010, Kenyan mobile phone firm Safaricom saw its subscriber base increase in excess of 500-fold. Open Mic: Mobile devices in Kenya Gallery created by Stina Backer. Redirecting to New Agriculturist article - - rss. Socialmediaguideafrica.wikispaces. Internet Society Chapters Webcasting. Africa's Talking brings cell phone applications to Africa. Africa's Talking aims at reducing information and communication poverty in Africa by providing an API that allows developers to easily connect to mobile phone networks across Africa and deploy basic mobile applications built on SMS, USSD or Voice. With more than 190 mobile phone companies in Africa, spread out over 55 countries and bureaucratic hurdles involved in connecting to mobile phone networks, it's very difficult for developers to quickly build and scale basic mobile applications across Africa.
Eston Kimani, CEO and co-founder of Africa's Talking, explains: "Right now you have to deal with intermediaries and jump through hoops. " It's hard for small developers to launch SMS-based services, which could be very useful, for example, in the agriculture industry, where farmers could be alerted to current produce prices, or in health care, where people could be pinged when it’s time for them to take medication. References: Rwanda Map of Financial Inclusion | MIX. Download the Data The Rwanda Financial Map of Financial Inclusion investigates the landscape for financial services providers in Rwanda to provide insight into access to finance and financial inclusion within Rwanda.
The site provides locations of bank branches, microfinance institutions, Umurenge SACCOs and mobile banking agents. For more on this dataset, please see our blog post. Data on the location of institutions and branches have been collected using primary sources and web scraping to extract the numbers and locations of financial services from publicly available data, consolidated into a single database. Population Data Population estimates are provided for the second-level administrative area (district municipalities) for the year 2010. Poverty Data Poverty ratio estimates for first-level administrative divisions (province) were obtained from the Multidimensional Poverty Index constructed by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative.
Finscope Data Derived Estimates Close. Quick Hits Around African Tech: July 2012. Africa: Clinton Should Urge Leaders to Address Abuse. (Washington, DC) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her trip to Africa should promote freedom of expression and association and encourage countries to address police and security force abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a public letter today. Secretary Clinton is scheduled to visit Senegal, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa between July 31 and August 10, 2012.
“While some of the countries on Secretary Clinton’s agenda engage in serious human rights violations, others have made notable progress in promoting transparency and accountability,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Human rights protection is essential to good governance and development.” In Uganda over the last two years, government officials have intensified their intimidation of non-governmental organizations working on controversial issues, such as transparency in the oil sector, compensation for land acquisition, and the rights of sexual minorities. In Rural Developing Regions, Free Software Turns Simple Mobile Phones into Tools of Advancement.
A simple open-source telephony platform is bringing communications networks to developing nations where literacy is low and Internet access limited. Freedom Fone is free software that enables organizations to create voice-activated communications networks. In regions where simple mobile phones are more common than toilets, let alone Internet access, Freedom Fone can be used to access, share and report information. In one compelling example that caught the attention of a World Bank blogger, it allowed women in the Congo "...to anonymously access pre-recorded information regarding sexual assaults such as their legal rights and health with a function to request call back.
" Reproductive health activists from Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya are now discussing how to implement Freedom Fone in their countries. Africans and Latin Americans Discuss Capacity Development. Startup Weekend enables companies to be created in 54 hours – even in Africa. Africa: Social Media Skills for African Youth With Disabilities. Africa Roundtable at OfficeXpats on 6 July, 2012 | Kabissa Blog. Africa: Roadmap Might End Bottlenecks in Sustainable Technology. Investor network comes together to launch African ventures.
ICT training for physically challenged | Technology. Tambalina.com – La première plateforme de financement de projet TIC en Afrique. – Afrique IT News. Sub-Saharan Africa economic growth remains robust – World Bank. How Africa is embracing “the cloud” on its own terms. How not to write about Africa; parents like conditions; see inequality from space; growth stars; financial arms races; Rio+20 draft text; Family Planning Summit: links I liked. EMEA Reporter: Spotlight on Africa by Nic Laycock. Why we need vocational education - The Answer Sheet. Africa’s top innovators commit to firm path forward. Nigerian banker urges a businesslike approach to poverty in Africa. Report on eLearning Africa 2012 in Benin. Updates from the Field | Indigo Trust. African nations embrace e-learning, says new report. Africa Day dawns on new, connected continent.
Eskimi Rapidly Spreading Across African Feature Phones. eLearning Africa 2012 / International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training. An Annual Event for Building eLearning Capacities in Africa. Analogue Digital - Uncovering Global Cultures of Technology. Where to invest in Africa. East Africa: Using technology to counter floods. World Economic Forum 2011. World Economic Forum on Africa 2012 | World Economic Forum - World Economic Forum on Africa 2012. Mobile money in Africa: Press 1 for modernity. Fondos de inversión y gobiernos ya han comprado el 4,8% de la superficie agrícola de África.
New_high_speed_UbuntuNet_link. Mobile Convention Amsterdam. Big shifts and what they mean for Africa and Kenya | End Poverty. Mobile as media – Why it will change everything about marketing in Kenya, and the rest of Africa. African Conference on Measuring Well-Being and Fostering the Progress of Societies. More Support Needed for Climate Change Adaptation in Africa, says Workshop - UNEP. Our biggest development challenge | Melina Platas Izama. East Africa Philanthropy Awards (EAPA) 2012 – Apply Today. | conceptlink.com. Contest | Africa Rural Connect. In Sudan, a new strategy to censor the press. Can Coffee Kick-Start an Economy? April Events: Join a Mobile Discussion! OER Africa. Africa: International Radio Astronomy Project to Benefit Africa.
DEATH METAL ANGOLA | The hardest hardcore is Angolan hardcore. IBM Smarter Cities Challenge – Africa Winners – Accra, Nairobi, Rabat and Tshwane | conceptlink.com. African eDevelopment | Telecoms and ICT Training. Ned Breslin: Few Celebrating MDG Success in Water. Top Ten African mobile apps. African voices respond to hyper-popular Kony 2012 viral campaign. ICT Projects in Africa. African Apps Gain Global Recognition. Mobile Trends 2020 Africa.