Int Development

VSO London Social Event

Alex November 19th, 2009

Julia, a friend who was also working last year with VSO in Ethiopia but now returned to London, is organising the VSO London social group. Anyone, ex VSO, prospective VSO or just generally interested is welcome to attend:

6.30pm – 9.30pm, Monday 30th November, 2009; Pitcher & Piano, 40 – 42 William IV Street, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 4DD
You are cordially invited to the second social evening of the London VSO Group!

We had a good time in September – about thirty of us turned up. This time we want more!

As you may recall, the group is open to all, returned volunteers, friends and family, potential new volunteers, VSO staff – literally anyone with any involvement with VSO or an interest in development.

We want to have another “just” social evening, to get us feeling like a group, but would like our meeting in the new year to be more formal with some sort of theme/structure – as ever, we’re keen that YOU help shape how the group proceeds, so we will be canvassing your opinion on this. Thoughts to consider:

How often would you attend?
What would you like to come along to – what would be really nice to get involved with?
What can you bring to this?
Where would you like to meet – do you have venue ideas?

Here is the link to the VSO site, which will keep you updated with activities –
http://community.vsointernational.org/groups/vso-london-supporter-group-uk

We very much hope to see you at our second drinks evening on Monday 30th November. Please bring along friends or anyone else – the more the merrier. Please also distribute this notice to your own networks.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Mums for Mums

Alex November 10th, 2009

Last week, I was asked to go and visit the Mums for Mums centre to help them to help them out with the redevelopment of their website. Mums for Mums is a local NGO which helps women into work by giving them training and childcare, plus much more. They’ve recently won a grant of 100,000 USD from the Stars foundation to expand their activities. This is a huge amount of money for a relatively small NGO in Ethiopia.

They’d like to revamp their existing website so they can better advertise the work and projects they’re able to undertake with the new funds. The current site was built by a VSO volunteer when she was working in Mekelle a few years ago – she worked at the Computer Science department at the University and started the elearning project that I worked on last year. As she has now left Ethiopia, I feel it would be more appropriate if the office staff could keep the site up to date themselves, rather than depending on someone abroad to do this for them.

My first task in this work is to write a proposal they can send to Stars, so at least they can show they’ve started thinking and planning how their website will be renovated.

Updating the site to use a content management system (not sure which one we’ll use yet) and training the staff will be straightforward enough. The more complex facility that they’d like is the ability for people to donate money online, as they receive many offers of donations, often from people in the UK. Currently there are two ways in which money can be donated. Either by transferring money directly into the Mums for Mums bank account in Mekelle, or by donating through a partner charity (Friends of Ethiopian Children in Need – FECIN) in the UK.

Neither of these methods are ideal, transferring money directly by international transfer is expensive (approx 40 GBP per transfer) and so is only appropriate for very large donations. Using a partner charity in the UK means they are dependent on this other charity.

We had a discussion about how we can find a solution for this, but is difficult as Mums for Mums is not a registered charity in the UK and so can’t use (for example) the JustGiving website. Registering as a UK charity may be a solution, but they’ll need representation in the UK, plus all the associated paperwork.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how we could find a good solution to this problem would be gratefully received. There must be many other NGOs around the world who receive donations from the UK without being registered as a UK charity, so we’d be interested to hear any possible solutions. Please either leave a comment below or email me directly (alex@alexlittle.net)

25 years on

Alex October 24th, 2009

As I’m sure many of you will be aware, it is 25 years since the reports of famine in Ethiopia appeared on the BBC. But a quarter of a century later (and who knows how many millions in aid) there are new reports about potential famine in these same areas affected all those years ago. The BBC has recently broadcast from Mekelle about the situation (here and here), and Oxfam are again raising money to try to prevent famine occurring again across east Africa. There’s also a report on the Guardian website about the impact of the images sent back from Ethiopia 25 years ago.

From my point of view, working at the Uni in a well-off regional capital, I see little or no sign of the food shortages which are being reported back in the UK. I’m certainly not saying that problems don’t exist, I know that I’m in a privileged position, given my location, job and income – but for me, it’s hard to know how bad the situation is, or is becoming. It’s also likely to be affecting more remote rural areas far worse than where I’m based. There are no reports in the local media about the situation (in either the local language or English language newspapers), so my main sources of information about the problems are from outside Ethiopia, usually BBC & UK newspaper websites or from those I know who work with medical organisations/NGOs and spend more time out in the rural areas. As far as I’m aware the situation at the moment is certainly just about potential famine, and the number of people needing extra food aid (on top of the food aid normally given out) is 6.2 million – which is actually the same as last year.

Since coming to Ethiopia last year, I’ve always been wary about bringing up the subject of the 1984/85 famine. Most people I meet or work with are under 30 and so either weren’t born or were extremely young at the time. Also, those Ethiopians who have been abroad say that all anybody else in the world seems to know about Ethiopia is famine and long distance running and I don’t want to perpetuate the feeling that that’s all anyone knows or cares about Ethiopia.

Yesterday, Martin and I met up with Mike Wooldridge, the BBC journalist who has been sending back the recent reports, but was also one of the reporters here in Ethiopia reporting on the 1984/85 famine. He’s an ex VSO volunteer and his daughter was a VSO volunteer at the Teacher Training College here in Mekelle a few years ago. It was really interesting getting the chance to meet Mike, finding out about the changes that have taken place in Mekelle and Ethiopia generally over the last 25 years and also being able to show him around the University to demonstrate the work that VSO is currently doing.

Report into Student Computer Access

Alex October 20th, 2009

A few months ago (March 09) I surveyed all the computer science students to find out about their access to computers, how much they used the University computers, whether they had access to a computer outside those provided by the department, their skills in completing basic computing tasks and whether they felt elearning/online activities would be helpful in their studies.

After a delay of far too long, I’ve finally now had chance to write up the results – I can already think of ways that the survey could have been improved – re-wording of questions etc – so it may not be wonderfully scientific, but it does give an indication of the some of the issues involved. The full report (pdf) can be downloaded, but while you’re waiting for that to download here is the summary (all comments/feedback welcome):

In March 2009 all of the students in the computer science department were asked to complete a survey
relating to their access to computers, basic computing skills and attitudes towards elearning and online
activities. 64% of students (227) responded to the survey.
The key findings from the survey were:

  • 19% have access to a computer outside the computer science department
  • 21% never access the internet
  • 52% found access to a computer was a major problem or not possible at all
  • The main access difficulties expressed include: lack of computers, computer labs not open
    often enough and lack of or slow internet connection
  • Low levels of basic computing skills
  • 84% feel that online activities would be quite or very useful additions to their studies

From these key findings a number of recommendations can be made to improve the computing
facilities for students:

  1. Review of the computer lab set­up and configuration
  2. Increase in lab opening times
  3. Increase number of computers available
  4. Increase internet capacity
  5. Basic computer skills training
  6. Require courses to use the elearning system

The results from this survey can be used as a baseline for future surveys to measure the impact of
initiatives to improve student computer access (such as replacement or new computers and labs) and
whether the recommendations have had the desired effect.

It should be noted that since some of these recommendations were written (back in April), work has already begun in ordering new computers for the student computer labs and in requesting increased bandwidth from ETC.

High Speed Internet – coming soon?

Alex September 16th, 2009

Although there seems to be plenty of talk on the new broadband internet connection for East Africa, for me it only means that Ethiopia will get yet further behind it’s neighbours. Being an undersea cable, it’s natural that coastal countries would be first to benefit, but there has been little (no?) mention of Ethiopia being connected, despite other landlocked countries (Uganda, Rwanda etc) being talked about. The BBC article talks about the expense and slow speed of internet access in Kenya, but if those connection speeds were available at those prices in Ethiopia – that would represent a huge step forward. The new faster connections are a great for some countries, but remember there is still a long way to go in improving internet access across the region.

Computer Viruses in Ethiopia

Alex August 20th, 2009

A recent article in the Guardian this week discusses the problems of (computer) viruses and the chaos they can cause in Africa. Alan Mercer, one of my fellow VSO IT volunteers was interviewed for the article. It’s interesting reading, and has generated plenty of comments worth reading (even though I may not agree with all of them!).

It’s easy to spot the comments written by people who obviously haven’t worked in developing countries, yes, we all know that there are (theoretically) technical solutions to many of the problems, use linux, run XYZ piece of software from your USB stick etc. But in my experience here, as one of the comments states, it certainly is ‘much more complicated than that’.

Can cloud computing work in Ethiopia?

Alex July 16th, 2009

With all the recent talk about Google Chrome OS and Microsoft office on the web, putting cloud computing back in the technology headlines, I recently read a less well publicised Microsoft story in the Seattle Times:

As U.S. companies begin exploring cloud computing this year, a school system on the other side of the globe has already leapt into the cloud. Ethiopia is rolling out 250,000 laptops to schoolteachers all over the country, all running on Microsoft’s platform called Azure.

The project, as described in the article, seems to overlook 2 huge issues, as do most of the people who have left comments on the article.

Firstly, the internet infrastructure in Ethiopia is just not robust, widespread or reliable enough for teachers to just connect up their shiny new laptops to some data centre in the US. Take for example Abi Adi, a town of around 20000 people, about 3 hours drive from where I’ve been working in Mekelle. A colleague, working in the teacher training college there, tried to get a couple of new phone lines installed to give extra (dial-up) internet access, but was told that all the lines for the town had already been allocated and no more would be available until new lines were installed, but no immediate plans were in place to increase the number of lines available.

And many Ethiopian towns and villages are far less well connected than Abi Adi.

There are obviously other options to delivering internet access through copper or fibre networks, such as through VSAT or the mobile phone network. But again to get these installed, or made reliable for the proposed project, would be a massive (and costly) undertaking in it’s own right.

Secondly, there’s no mention of the training and support that would be need to be given to teachers. The support infrastructure would need to be huge, who is going to fix the machines when they (almost inevitably) get a virus, or overheat after being choked with dust?

My experience of the One Laptop Per Child project shows that the training and support given to teachers and students is absolutely crucial to the success of the project – in much the same way it will be to this new project.

So, do I think cloud computing could work for Ethiopian teachers? Certainly not currently.

It’s not that I don’t like the idea of what they’re trying to do here, but just very wary that it’s yet another white elephant project which sounds good and gets them in the headlines. The money could be far better spent working with ETC (Ethiopia’s sole telecoms company) to improve the general internet infrastructure, and training teachers to work better with the technology already available to them. Only then might Ethiopia be able to take advantage of the possibilities afforded by cloud computing.

Ethiopia ranked 147 of 154 in ICT Development Index

Alex March 3rd, 2009

For those of you interested in statistics! From EthioBlog and ITU:

Ethiopia ranks 147th in information and communication technologies (ICT) Development index, according to a report released by International Telecommunication Union (ITU). According to the report, Ethiopia has one of the lowest telephone density in the world with 1.1 fixed telephones per 100 inhabitants and 1.5 Mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Just 0.2 percent of Ethiopian households have computer and 0.1 of Ethiopian household have access to the Internet, the report writes.

ICT DEVELOPMENT INDEX 2007 RANKING (2002 RANKING)

Top 10 in ICT Development
1 – SWEDEN (1)
2 – SOUTH KOREA (3)
3 – DENMARK (4)
4 – NETHERLANDS (6)
5 – ICELAND (2)
6 – NORWAY (5)
7 – LUXEMBOURG (21)
8 – SWITZERLAND (7)
9 – FINLAND (8)
10 – UNITED KINGDOM (10)

Bottom 10 in ICT Development
145 – TANZANIA (138)
146 – MALI (150)
147 – ETHIOPIA (147)
148 – MOZAMBIQUE (148)
149 – ERITREA (137)
150 – BURKINA FASO (151)
151 – DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (144)
152 – GUINEA-BISSAU (153)
153 – CHAD (152)
154 – NIGER (154)

Blogger unblocked

Alex February 26th, 2009

Ever since I arrived in Ethiopia, access to Blogger has been completely blocked across the country. This was quite a pain for anyone wanting follow Blogger blogs – they could be accessed via online RSS readers – but then you still missed out on any images. It was also a problem for those VSO volunteers who had set up blogs before they came to Ethiopia then found they couldn’t update them easily (or at all!).

The good news is that today I’ve found I can now access Blogger directly! So for some reason ETC (telecoms co) or Ethiopian government must have decided it was no longer a threat.

The bad news (from Bloomberg) is that it seems unlikely the ETC monopoly on telecoms will be relaxed – meaning ongoing outrageous costs for mobile SIMs and broadband internet connections. To quote from their article (note that is the correct number of zeros in the 1Mb broadband monthly cost):

Girma Birru, Ethiopia’s trade minister, said Ethiopia has no plans to liberalize the telecommunications and financial-services industries to gain access to World Trade Organization (WTO), Bloomberg news reported.

“Primarily we will join the WTO not to make others happy, but to make our economy work,” Birru said. “So to the extent it helps our economy we will liberalize things, but if it’s not going to assist our goals in trade and development we will not liberalize. Why do we have to?”

“I don’t see any plan” to break up or sell Ethiopian Telecommunications Corp. to private investors, Birru said. “If there are some problems it has nothing to do with ownership. It has only to do with management. Management and ownership don’t necessarily go together.”

According to Bloomberg news, Ethiopian Telecommunication charges $35 for a mobile-phone SIM card, where in neighboring Somalia and Kenya it costs less than $5. A 1-megabyte per second Internet connection costs more than $2,000 a month in Ethiopia. In South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy, a similar service costs between 600 rand ($59) and 760 rand, according to the http://www.mybroadband.co.za Web site.

Newai Gebre-Ab, chief economic advisor to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said “the company [ETC] is “generating a lot of money and that money is being put to good use for development of infrastructure,”.

OLPC for Uni students?

Alex January 31st, 2009

My previous comments about the computing ability of some of the Computer Science students may not have been too generous, however, if they’d all been given a laptop on arrival at Uni, something like an Asus EEE PC or OLPC XO, I’m sure many would not be having the problems I mentioned.

The OLPC project is certainly having some problems and I previously criticised how the OLPC laptops were being used in schools. Looking back now I realise that maybe the project isn’t meeting it’s intended aims, but even if it’s just getting students used to being able to use a keyboard and a computer generally, then surely that’s not a bad thing? I’m dealing with first year computer science students who have little idea about even login names, passwords or keyboards.

In the last week I conducted a mini-survey amongst our Computer Science Uni students about their access to computers and attitudes towards having access to course materials online, almost all (around 90%) said that access to a computer was one of their main problems. Given that this survey was online (OK, maybe not my brightest of ideas for this type of survey!), the total figure is likely to be more than 90%. For info, there are about 10-15 working PC’s per 80-90 computer science students and less than 10% have access to a PC outside the those provided by the university.

I’m sure that giving the uni students a laptop, even just a cheap one, would be immensely beneficial to the next generation of computer science students/graduates. So if anyone is looking to improve the computing capabilities of those in the developing world, you could no worse than providing laptops to university level students. In my opinion, the more access and practise students have with PCs, be that Window or Unix, the better.

As an aside, I’ve been quite surprised by the number of university computer science students who don’t yet have an email address. I hadn’t even thought to ask this in my survey, but it’s come up in training sessions, when students fill in their profile, many have asked what to enter in the email field if they don’t have an email address!

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