Natasha Beschorner

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ICT Applications for Rural DevelopmentExamples,
Enablers, Success Factors

• Natasha Beschorner
• June 5, 2007

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Outline

• How can ICT contribute to rural economic
  development?
• Examples, Cases
• Critical Success Factors and enabling environment
• Key questions roles of government, development
  partners

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How can ICT contribute to rural economic
development?

• Provides access to information benefiting rural
  producers and supply chains
• e.g. Market price information, weather, supply
  chain information (e.g. transport and fuel
  availability), news,
• Facilitates access to services
• Financial services, access to credit, funds
  transfer, savings
• Land registration, land use planning/administratio
  n
• Facilitates access to markets
• E-commerce-direct to customer
• E-commerce-portals, virtual communities
• Facilitates access to other public services for
  rural populations (health, education, government)

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ICT Tools

• Mobile phone (voice, text/SMS)
• Internet via PC
• Internet via mobile phone/PDA
• Broadcast media (now via TV, radio in
  medium-term via mobile phone and Internet as a
  result of convergence)

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M-Banking

• Transfer of credit (airtime) via mobile phone/SMS
• Deposits, savings, loans, payroll, remittance
  payments, purchases (in participating retail
  outles), bill payments
• Partnership between mobile operator, financial
  institution financial regulator

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M-Banking Examples 1

• G-cash, SmartMoney Globe, Smart (Philippines)
• Wizzit-MTN (S. Africa)
• Celpay (Zambia)
• Safaricom M-Pesa (Kenya)
• NTT DoCoMo (Japan)

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M-Banking potential benefits

• To consumers
• Reduces travel time and costs (to travel to Bank
  branch). In Papua New Guinea, teachers may travel
  2-3 days by rough road or boat to withdraw
  salaries
• Reduced transaction costs for remittances (1
  cash-out for G-cash, compared to higher rates
  from Western Union)
• Reduced opportunities for fraud, counterfeit and
  theft by providing a secure electronic mode for
  transferring funds (as opposed to, for example,
  travelling long distances to transfer cash)
• To service providers
• Reduced direct costs for delivering savings and
  credit products
• Reduced errors and increased transparency in the
  transfer and recording of loan disbursements and
  payments and savings deposits
• Easier record keeping on each client through
  computerization of transactions through mobile
  phones, thus making it easier for financial
  institutions to tailor products and services for
  segments within their large pool of small
  customers.

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M-Banking Key Enablers

• Telecom infrastructure (mobile) reliable,
  affordable, extensive penetration in rural areas,
  and good network quality
• Linked to overall telecoms market environment
  (competition, effective regulation)
• Technology bandwidth, security issues
• Literacy (SMS culture)
• Financial sector regulation consumer protection,
  risk management, anti money-laundering

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Market Price Information

• Formal or informal transmission of price and
  other information between markets and producers
• Production and dissemination of market
  intelligence
• Can be top-down (govt, private sector) or
  bottom-up (private sector, individual)
• Reduces price instability and intermediation
  costs for producers
• Expands market opportunities

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ExamplesMarket Information 1

• Manobi (Senegal, Uganda, S. Africa). Producer
  price information via SMS. Recently also
  emergency rescue capability (using GPS).

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Examples Market Information-2

• Sri Lanka Govi Gnana (Farmer Knowledge)-developed
  by govt
• Philippines B2B Price Now (Internet)
• Ghana TradeNet (Internet)
• Warana (India)
• Senegal Manobi (mobile phone, PDA)
• Bangladesh Grameen Village Phone (mobile)
• India eChoupal (Internet)
• India Kerala fishermen (mobile phone)

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Examplesonline extension service
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Market Price Information Key Enablers

• Affordable, reliable telecoms infrastructure
• Mobile telephony
• Internet (via PC or mobile/GPRS, 3G)
• Content management information quality,
  relevance, timely updates
• HR capacity to deliver services

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Examples Land Information Systems

• Cadastral information
• Land use planning, GIS
• Environmental management
• Tax collection
• Disaster management
• Property registration

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Examples Land Information Systems

• India Bhoomi land records computerization
• Guatemala land administration
• Panama digital registry
• India, Gyandoot
• Thailand computerised land regisation
• Vietnam Bac Ninh LIS
• Philippines LAMP, LARES

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Land Information Key Enablers

• Infrastructure affordable, reliable, access to
  Internet
• Rural broadband
• Institutional and legal reforms -business
  process change, incentives
• Institutional coordination (registration, land
  valuation, mapping, taxation)

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Key Questions

• How well connected are rural populations, and
  what policy changes are needed to improve rural
  connectivity?
• How can high-value information applications be
  mobilized and scaled-up to improve rural
  productivity, livelihoods and living standards ?
• How much capacity building is required for rural
  areas to create a society of producers of local
  knowledge and of users of that knowledge?
• How can government efforts to promote rural
  development in various forms and to develop
  rural infrastructure be more closely integrated,
  conceptually, institutionally and in practice?

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Rural ICT Applications CSFs

• Low-cost, reliable communications infrastructure,
  available in rural areas
• Mobile phone networks
• Broadband
• Private investment
• Supportive and effective legal/regulatory
  framework
• Competitive telecoms markets
• Effective regulation consumer protection,
  tariffs, spectrum, interconnection
• Universal Service/Access policies (stimulating
  rural access)
• ICT skills
• information systems management, content
  development, training at village level (users,
  operators)
• Broader institutional development

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Telecoms Infrastructure Trends

• Rapidly increasing access to mobile, particularly
  in urban areas, but increasingly in rural as
  urban markets saturate
• Lower costs of coverage
• New technologies and convergence (mobile
  Internet, GPRS, 3G, IPTV)
• Next wave rural broadband (investment in
  fibre-optic backbones)

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Access to Telecommunications
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(No Transcript)
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Telecoms access in the Pacific( of population)
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The Access Problem
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Addressing the supply gap

• Policies and programs to facilitate access to
  telecommunications in rural areas
• e.g. universal service policies
• Universal service funds
• Broadband
• PPPs for investment
• PPPs for service provision

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Extending Access to Rural Areas

• Need for increased, mainly private, investment in
  communications infrastructure and services
• Market liberalization phase out monopolies and
  introduce competition, especially in mobile,
  Internet
• Effective and transparent regulation, in
  particular greater balance between capacity of
  operators (high) and governments (low)
• Fair prices
• Competitive behaviour
• Good governance
• Rural access ensuring service to commercially
  unviable areas (many of these)
• Reducing costs of international bandwidth
  (regional infrastructure-sharing? Satellite vs
  cable?)

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ICT Skills Issues

• ICT-skills needs
• Curriculum relevance
• Academic-industry partnerships
• User skills
• Content development
• Maintenance
• Daily use

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M-Banking Role of Govt

• Stimulate greater competition in both
  telecommunications and banking services.
• Stimulate greater participation from private
  capital.
• Support an expansion in rural telephony through
  smart subsidies to help private entrepreneurs
  develop rural infrastructure.
• Develop a suitable financial regulatory framework
  for m-banking services.
• Central Bank authorities need to develop a
  framework that protects consumers from undue
  risks, fraud or crime and ensures that service
  providers adopt adequate risk management
  measures while at the same time facilitates and
  encourages innovation in financial service
  development, in particular to better serve rural
  communities.

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M-Banking Role of Development Partners

• Equity investment (IFC)
• Encourage involvement of local operators and
  commercial banks in the development of their own
  m-banking service platforms
• Advise financial regulators on regulatory
  requirements
• TA, training, workshops and seed financing and
  sponsorship of partnerships between
  telecommunications operators, rural banks and
  central bank officials, can help extend the
  mobile financial services frontier to rural areas

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Market Info Services-role of govt

• Promoting low cost access to mobile phones appear
  to be the best way to empower farmers with the
  ability to gather market price information from
  trusted sources that are relevant to their
  particular needs and to reduce intermediation
  costs and price variability.
• There is a role for both Government and donors in
  helping to develop rural telephony, as well as
  increasing Internet connectivity to expand farmer
  access to opportunities to establish new contacts
  through email and search for market intelligence
  information in the Web.

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Market Info Services role of devel. partners

• Integrating infrastructure and applications
  development support.e.g. Guatemala Rural
  Economic Development Program (World Bank 2006)
  supports telecommunications development (50 of
  total funding), together with agricultural
  marketing and trade (25), general transportation
  (25) and general agriculture, fishing and
  forestry (5).
• Indonesias Farmers empowerment through
  agricultural technology and information project
  is an example that combines support to the
  countrys extension service with the delivery,
  via the Internet and mobile phones, of market
  intelligence and technical services, and is
  expected to foster greater interaction between
  extension agents, researchers, farmers and
  traders.

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Land role of govt and development partners

• A long term program made up of adaptable program
  loans as in Thailand, Lao P.D.R., the
  Philippines, Honduras and El Salvador - could
  help expand land administration services and
  gradually develop land information systems.
• Avoid focusing too much on sophisticated portals
  that provide online land administration services.
  Many such portals have been set up only after a
  long institutional development struggle, the
  reengineering of procedures and significant
  legislative changes.
• To increase understanding among decision-makers
  and project planners, studies, workshops and
  exchanges of staff on land information systems
  approaches, specialized land information systems
  topics and Internet service requirements could be
  very productive.

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Multiple responses at different levels
Access Devices
Vendors retailers
User Domain
Telecenters, Micro-finance schemes, e.g. Grameen
Content, Services, Applications, Customer Care
Service Content providers
Demand aggregation, e-government programs,
e-gov outsourcing
Operator Service Provider Domains
Access Networks Last Mile
Retail operators
Universal Service Funds and Output-Based Aid
Carriers carrier
Broadband Backbone Networks
PPPs and Open Access Model, e.g. Andra Pradesh
Passive Infrastructure Providers (e.g. Wireless
Tower Companies)
Passive Infrastructure Provider Domain
Ducts, Masts, Poles, Co-location Sites, Dark
Fibre
Open Access and OBA being explored
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Further Issues for Discussion

• Roles of public, private sectors, development
  partners
• More holistic view of rural ICT
  infrastructure, HR, value-added applications.