SEND will develop an Open Source monitoring tool in cooperation with software developers to be used on handheld mobile devices to collect and share data. Due to the poor communication infrastructure, this will enable SEND to transmit data and share monitoring information with grassroots organisations and others. They are also developing and implementing a monitoring information management system that will help them track and analyze the data.

Continue reading about how Mobile Devices Help Monitor Access to Healthcare in Ghana….

Speed is often critical in an advocacy campaign and mobile phones allow the rapid dissemination of messages to a network of supporters with specific calls for action. In the developing world, where internet access can be slow or limited, mobile phone campaigns can reach a broad constituency of citizens.

This guide provides examples of successful advocacy campaigns in Argentina, UK, USA, and Africa where mobile phone communication among supporters has played an important part,

Continue reading how to use mobile phones in advocacy campaigns…

Can mobile telephony improve commercial supply-chains in developing countries? Informational challenges – absence, uncertainty, asymmetry – shape the working of markets and commerce in many developing countries. This paper is a case study of the impact of mobile telephony on SMEs in the clothweaving sector in Nigeria.

Continue reading about the Impact of mobile phones on SME supply chains in Nigeria…

Mobiles can be useful tools for collecting, planning, coordinating and recording activities of NGO staff and activists. But did you know that whenever your phone is on, your location is known to the network operator? Or that each phone and SIM card transmits a unique identifying code, which, unless you are very careful about how you acquire the phone and SIM, can be traced uniquely to you?

With cameras, GPS, mobile Internet come ever more dangerous surveillance possibilities, allowing an observer, once they have succeeded in gaining control of the phone, to turn it into a sophisticated recording device. However, even a simple phone can be tracked whenever it is on the network, and calls and text messages are far from private. Where surveillance is undertaken in collusion with the network operator, both the content of the communication and the identities of the parties involved is able to be discovered, sometimes even retrospectively. It is also possible to surreptitiously install software on phones on the network, potentially gaining access to any records stored on the phone.

This is understandably disquieting to activists involved in sensitive work.

continue reading about using your phone safely…

TechTuesday

continue reading about how videoconferencing is helping philippine farmers communicate with agri experts…

Read the full article here…

Abstract

This paper emphasizes the role of knowledge management and communication in value chains from the perspective of resource-poor producers in Latin America. Based on value chain literature, social network theories and concepts of knowledge management and communication, it develops some basic principles of a concept of knowledge management and communication in value chain. Then it presents three value chains (coffee, silk and jaggery) and their information and knowledge problems as barriers for sustaining market relations and/or improving competitiveness. Their effects are conflicting relationships between stakeholders of the value chain, low innovation rates and incompliance with contracts, which put the whole chain at risk.

The use of media, including ICT-based media, and the strategy of network-building to increase social capital are presented and discussed as instruments to overcome these problems. While media, especially ICT-based media, can overcome information access problems for ICT literate stakeholders, strengthening horizontal ties is key in order to translate, diffuse and appropriate information and knowledge. Local leaders can act as bridges, linking consumers’ demand and producers’ supply, facilitating the development of co-innovations. Finally, acknowledging the human dimension of economic relationships means putting the person and their social relationships into the heart of research and development.

Download “Knowledge management and communication to address information access and power asymmetries for resource-poor producers in value chains” here…

How can Web 2.0 new interactive internet tools and multimedia be used for advocacy and international development?

The toolkit provides information and advice on developing your communication and advocacy strategy and using the following types of multimedia:

• Audio looks at information on how to use specific types of software such as Audacity, SongBird and OurMedia, podcasting, recording and editing interviews
• Internet looks at planning and maintaining a website, running a blog, email marketing, search engine maximisation and content management systems
• Images looks at information on copyright and photo-sharing, comics and animation, and how to crop or scale images
• Print looks at creating a logo, designing a newsletter and available software such as OpenOffice, Scribus and Inkspace
• Video looks at strategies, security and safety; creating videos and tools for doing this, publishing and publicising videos, advocacy videos without a camera
• Mobile phones looks at creating and sharing content, multimedia capacity, updating blogs and websites, security and privace

Topics specific to development workers and campaigners are addressed such as working with low bandwidth, freely available software or making a video without a video recorder. In addition, the contents of the website are available on CD for offline browsing.

Continue reading about Tips, techniques and advice on using new technologies for advocacy…