Leveraging ICT for Rural Livelihoods

(Experiences from the field)

Krishna PidatalaJan 29, 2009

Livelihoods Approaches – key findings

•People’s Sector – Recognition that poor people are an important segment of society who can be treated as a Sector

•Pro-poor institutions – Building and/or fostering pro-poor institutions is the first step to ensure that a sustainable platform for ensuring results in the alleviation of poverty.

•Commitment & Long term perspective – Giving the space and consciously allowing institutions and structures to grow and flourish.

•Focus on Economic Empowerment – Focus on economic empowerment and social capital will follow. Strategy is to empower poor people through savings and loans and NOT grants.

•Building upon people’s knowledge – Poor people are resource poor not knowledge poor.

•Convergence – Convergence of government policies, financial and market linkages, private sector partnerships etc.

•Essential inputs – financial resources, labor and INFORMATION

THE PEOPLE SECTOR – what is it?

Hypothesis: The supply side (both public and private)cannot be made more efficient in helping the poor unless it’s in the context of an organized demand side

Principle: Help communities help themselves to address– Government failures– Market failures

Rationale: Poor people have a huge untapped potential• For public sector - Largest voting bank and client for services• For private sector - Largest potential market for products and

services

THE PEOPLE SECTOR - strategy

Strategy:• Gaining Voice • Reaching Scale

How: 1. The software: Build institutions OF the

poor (vs. institutions FOR the poor)Organization, social capital, capacity buildingIrrespective of whether it is for public or private

goods 2. The hardware: Put assets in the hands of poor people

providing opportunities for income generation Income will strengthen the “voice”

Framework for Project Interventions

Livelihoods

• Skill building• Food Security •Assetization and Income Generation•Access to financial services• Fair terms of trade

Social Mobilization

Role of PMU

• Mobilization, capacity building

• Bank Linkage

• Partnerships

• Innovation in rural livelihoods

Entitlements & Accountability

• Access to information

• Accountability of services

• Participation in local government

Investment in self-sustaining

institutions and federations of

the poor

• Participatory targeting

• Social and economic capital

•Generating voice and scale

The Software(graduation model)

Affinity-based

Savings and Loans

Activity-based

Assets/marketing

Resource-based

Irrigation, Watershed, forestry

FranchisingRetailing

Commodity Cooperatives

Federation of User Groups

Marketing services

Banking Savings &

Loans Coops

Different levels of associative tiers

Producer

Companies

Community enterprises

Developing an Architecture for Investors to Invest at the Bottom of the Pyramid

• Institution Building: Supporting, strengthening and federating self managed grassroots institutions of the poor

• Financial Capital and Livelihood Credit Planning: Establishing access to savings, assets, credit and other market linkages for livelihood improvement.

• Human Capital : Building Capacity and providing skill development to the develop functional Skills Example: Grassroots Quality controllers. Book-keepers, village Botanists

• Infrastructure: Providing community infrastructure for value addition e.g.. Storage, warehousing, solar driers

Investments in Key SectorsCo - production model

Federated institutions of the poor become partners with key players in the public/private sector acting as franchises

Agribusiness

Dairy and Livestock

Services and Jobs

Micro-enterprise

Local Government

Public Sector Public Distribution

SystemGovernment

SchemesMin Support Price

Financial SectorBanks, MFI ,

Insurance Companies

Cooperatives

Private SectorRetailers

Traders, Nationals,Multinationals

People’s SectorSkilled & Federated

CBOs

Potential role ICT in Rural Livelihoods

Two Main Roles• Enabler – efficiency, knowledge dissemination,

M&E, preservation of indigenous knowledge, improved service delivery

• Transformational – Empowerment, participation, transparency & accountability leading to good governance and reduced inequality, two-way information flows, (reduced information barriers = changed patterns of living)

Diversity of approaches using flexible technologies

• Profit for the Poor - Poverty reduction by leveraging ICT for the poor (Grameen)

• Developing emerging markets – HP’s e-inclusion strategy (close the gap between technology-empowered communities and technology-excluded communities) ; beyond CSR and look at potential market opportunity

• Information catalysts – concept of e-villages by increased access to information. Women entrepreneurs, demand driven hub training, livelihood diversification, localized services

• Information as a public good – difficult to restrict (low excludability) and no loss in value when any have it (low extractability); Examples of this type information is – weather info, soil & cropping info, market prices & food safety, etc.

ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field

Mobile platform

• Livestock & animal husbandry – SMS usage for disease surveillance ; veterinary checkups, periodic reports

• Market linkages & information – cell phone usage for market & price information

• Marketing Network for Women Entrepreneurs (FOOD – Foundation for Occupational Development, India) – low income women who make food products & household items or repackaged spices for sale (link across groups to - (a) compare prices across region (b) exchange goods (c) develop new markets,

• Electronic marketplace – e-choupal • Transparency & Accountability – SMS • Mobile banking – low value money transfers, reduced transaction costs,

increased convenience, increased credit, (Bangladesh & Kenya)

ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field

Grassroots innovations – database for grassroots innovations, protection of IPR, help file patents, add value to commercialize products, disseminate innovations using ICT (Honeybee Network & SRISHTI)

Use of Smart cards – used in milk related livelihoods ; contains user information ; used for recording amount, quality & fat content of milk supplied, accurate & transparent recording system – digitally recorded & tamper proff ; secure payment & to procure inputs ; (India, Kenya & Tanzania)

Community Information Centers (Ethiopia, Zambia & Tanzania)– Livestock prices in different markets, pineapple prices in nearby markets– agricultural inputs market prices, stock arrivals of commodities, daily market

prices of fresh vegetables, daily stock of bio-fertilizers, bio-pesticides, etc

E-commerce in Africa– Rural women artisan in Cape Verde – women display & sell handicrafts over

web – Women’s groups in Ethiopia – capacity building, improved handicraft designs,

sales information exchanged over the web

ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field

Village Information Centers – used for information (news,, doctors scheduling & appointments) – News displayed on board outside– Women operators –health care info, used to discuss women’s issues– Mechanisms for democratic participation (RIA, Government schemes)– Social capital & income generating activities (traditional medicine)

Micro-Insurance– Use of cell phone, databases, SMS, ATM machine for SHG life

insurance Participatory forest management - in-situ & ex-situ conservation of

medicinal plants, nurseries, kitchen gardens, eco-regeneration & forestry management- ICT used for seed banks, forest produce collection & marketing

Fisheries livelihoods (Veeripattinam, India) – Localized information available - US Navy website – weather & wave

information, conversion in local language audio files, transmission & loudspeaker announcement

ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field

Solar Energy usage for cell phone towers – Sudan, Fantusam Foundation (Nigeria) ; charging cell phones used for rural livelihoods

Health initiatives in rural areas – use of PDAs for pre-natal care & immunizations (Nalgonda district, India)

Satellite uplinks – (Future Stations, Brazil) – economic alternatives for youth (15-29) - support services to community entrepreneurs including a development agent for group purchases, credit access, insurance & other services

Innovative Internet & wireless E-services to fishermen – (Manobi, Senegal) – SMS usage for (a) input fish stock information (b) log departures & estimated arrivals (d) fishing unions alerted if fishing boats fail to return on time. WAP used to access central database in real time. Market prices determine landing points.

Voice portal for Health – (Voxiva, Peru) – disease surveillance using cell phones; information dissemination to rural health professionals,

Lessons Learned - ICT for Rural Livelihoods

General • Organized people sector – use as resource for data capture & lowering transaction costs (business or

government) , empowerment (people)• MIS effectiveness – interleave into processes, incentives for usage• Public-private partnerships – assures that private sector has “skin in the game”; increases sustainability• Experience – greater impact by using women as “agents of change”• Sustainability – ICT to fit with pro-poor institutional structures • Going forward - Leverage the Mobile platform by using low cost devices • Innovation - Learn from the users ; democratization of technology & data, feedback cycles through PRAs

& Social accountability approaches• Infrastructure/Broad band – work with what you have ; develop flexible business models• Uptake of ICT in rural development – accelerated by local language & context • Capacity development – focus on sector outcomes; keep technology simple

Bank Operations• Bank operations – need for sector strategy & business model ; Bank to be catalyst and adapt off-the-shelf

commercial solutions as far as possible• Digital divide within Bank - traditional way of thinking (Operations) versus techno-speak (GICT)• CDD operations – find practical & innovative ways to introduce ICT introduction into demand-driven

operations• Staff client learning – C2C exchanges, South-South partnerships