The project is funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada; an inception meeting was recently held in Kampala, Uganda, which Harsha de Silva attended. The project will be conducted in six African countries: Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Ghana, Benin, and Madagascar.

The  Scientific Advisory Committee constitutes:

• Prof. Chris Ackello-Ogutu, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nairobi, Kenya
• Prof. Julian May, School of Development Studies, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa
• Dr. Colin Poulton, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
• Dr. Adrian Mukhebi, CEO Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange and Market Economist, Nairobi
• Dr Harsha M. De Silva, Lead Economist, LIRNEasia

Harsha leads the agriculture-focused research at LIRNEasia, including a study on the impact of ICTs on transaction costs in agricultural markets in 2007.

Development organizations are pressed to demonstrate that their programs result in significant lasting changes in the well-being of their intended beneficiaries. However, such “impacts” are often the product of a confluence of events for which no single agency or group of agencies can realistically claim full credit. As a result, assessing development impacts is problematic, yet many organizations continue to struggle to measure results far beyond the reach of their programs.

Outcome Mapping is one methodology used to address this issue. The originality of this approach lies in its shift away from assessing the products of a program to focus on changes in behaviour, relationships, actions, and activities in the people, groups, and organizations it works with directly. In doing so, Outcome Mapping debunks many of the myths about measuring impact. It will help a program be specific about the actors it targets, the changes it expects to see, and the strategies it employs and, as a result, be more effective in terms of the results it achieves.

This video, by International Development Research Center (IDRC) Canada, is based on the workshop on ‘Evaluation’ for their partners held in Kuala Lumpur, last November. Outcome Mapping was a key theme discussed at the workshop.

More about Outcome Mapping from IDRC website.

The HazInfo project realized that early warnings via Information Communication Technology (ICT) must be a point-to-multi-point application and is best accommodate by Wireless ICTs. The HazInfo pilot included outfitting and field-testing an initial 32 villages with various combinations of wireless communication equipment, which could provide features such as: early warning wake-up, addressability and provision of information in three languages (English, Sinhalese and Tamil).

In December 2005, LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and reform research organization, initiated a research project to evaluate the “last-of-the-mile” communication component of an all-hazards warning system for Sri Lanka. The project entitled, “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination”, or the “HazInfo Project”, was funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada. Its research design was based on recommendations of a “participatory concept paper” for a national early warning system (NEWS:SL) completed in the months following the 2004 tsunami.

Mumbai, Mar 27, 2007: Mobile penetration will penetrate the homes of bottom or pyramid (BOP) families in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a study instituted by LIRNEasia has found.

Titled, “Teleuse on a Shoestring- A Study of the Financially Constrained in Asia,” it interviewed and maintained diaries of respondents from Thailand and Philippines besides the above mentioned countries. A C Nielsen conducted the fieldwork. International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada funded the research.

The study notes that south Asia has the largest concentration of poor people in the world. It is an accepted fact that the new growth markets in telecom, especially mobile, are concentrated amongst the poor, or at BOP. According to the GSM Association, the next billion subscribers will come from such markets, a large share from India.

According to the study, 94 per cent of the BOP in India had used a phone in the last three months, 81 per cent relied on shared phones, 38 per cent of non-owners plan to buy a phone in the next two years, 28 percent of the mobile owners use second hand sets, 35 per cent used SMS, compared to 100 per cent in the Philippines and 60 per cent in Sri Lanka, and keeping in touch with friends and family was the biggest use of telephones.

“96 percent of BOP who do not own a phone in rural India. They can access a phone in less than an hour, and public phones are the most popular access mode, followed by relative’s/ friend’s phone, neighbor’s phone, own (fixed) phone, household member’s mobile and own mobile,” the survey points out.

Convenience is the key for using a mobile phone for BOP families, privacy is more of a concern for higher income countries, it notes. Most BOP families in India obtained a mobile connection early 2000s. Pakistan has seen similar growth as previous years, where as Thailand BOP has grown much more steadily, the research states. It says that coverage was more important in rural India, and tariff was a major concern role in urban India.

Distinguishing the needs of the urban and rural BOPs, it opines, “While urban India wants cheap incoming and out going rates, better and easy connectivity, customer service and wider coverage, rural India’s needs are focused on a handset with connection, availability of easy payment schemes, interest in a particular package, low connection charges, as also cheap incoming and outgoing rates, better voice clarity, range of services and wider coverage.”

The researchers feel that the BOPs are more interested in prepaid mobile to control expenditures and no monthly rentals. Miss call alert is a universal strategy to minimize call costs by owners. Majority still call from fixed line to a fixed line, while a few use mobile to mobile calls and some use phone only as an incoming device.

The respondents experienced efficiency in daily activities after using a phone. “Only India BOP perceives economic benefit activities vs ability to earn or save are significantly different at 95 per cent confidence interval,” the study states. Respondents in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan said that they benefited in services and agriculture by saving travel time and costs, checking prices information and sale of minutes. They added sense of security is the main benefit in the ability to act during emergency.

The study also notes that three billion people would use phones by 2008, of which 50 per cent users would be from Asia Pacific, including China. India would lead the pack with a possible 101 new connections at BOP in the next two years, followed by Pakistan at 30 million, Philippines at ten million, and Sri Lanka and Thailand at one million each. Most respondents replied that they wanted to buy a mobile phone citing better value proposition as the reason.

A brief comparison in the fixed phones growth since liberalization (post NTP 1999) shows that the fixed phones have grown at a CAGR of 9.5 per cent in India, as against 11 per cent in Pakistan, 18.8 per cent in Sri Lanka, 10.43 per cent in Thailand and 11.1 per cent in Philippines. Mobile phones on the other hand have grown at a CAGR of 87.8 per cent in India, 109 per cent in Pakistan, 50.8 per cent in Sri Lanka, 65 percent in Indonesia, 68.8 per cent in Philippines and 49.6 per cent in Thailand.

Harsha de Silva, lead analyst at LIRNEasia avers the telecom operators should think about leveraging benefits of direct access, convergence, collaboration on meaningful content, SMS based services and innovations to enable cheaper calls for eg: any amount prepaid balance top ups. He also calls upon handset manufacturers to develop affordable handsets with local language SMS capabilities and ultra low cost phones with a warranty’.

Quoting C.K. Prahalad, “. if we stop thinking of poor as a burden and start recognizing them as value conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up,” he lists benefits from direct access as income generation through the sale of telecom services similar to the Grameen model. Indirect access includes use of a phone by an auto rickshaw driver, obtaining agricultural information by a farmer and cost savings made by making a call as opposed to taking a bus ride into town.

De Silva notes that the expectations of initial cost do match affordability and the mismatch between need and affordability has to be addressed. Most respondents expect the monthly usage charges to be below $5. He concludes adding, ” Wide PCO availability in India is perhaps protecting Indian BOP from paying poverty premium that Sri Lankan BOP has to face, those who use other people’s or public phones are being charged high rates.”

 Read story at CXOToday.com

Why LIRNEasia?
Enormous amounts of money are invested annually in ICTs. The potential of information and communication technologies, or ICTs for economic and social progress is substantial. ICTs aren’t necessarily the answer to higher incomes and development in itself; but together with other factors, they provide a means to improve people’s capabilities and knowledge so that they may better their lives. ‘Asia’ is the collective name for the countries roughly encircled by Russia, Turkey, Egypt and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. There is little that the entire region holds in common. Within this vast continent, lies South Asia, home to the largest concentration of poor people in the world. Yet Asia is seen as driving the global economy and is home to some of the world’s highest ICT industry performers. Korea has the highest broadband penetration rate as well as the second highest estimated number of Internet users in the world. Taiwan (China) has the highest number of mobile phones per hundred inhabitants in the world; Hong Kong (China) has the third highest (ITU, 2004). But Asia is also home to some of the lowest: the Internet is used by less than one per cent of the population in DPR Korea, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Cambodia, just to name a few. There are less than two telephones (fixed or mobile) per one hundred people in several of these countries (ITU, 2004). Broadband penetration is barely worth mentioning in many of Asia’s poorer nations. In terms of ICT sector performance, there are many Asias. ICT use in Asia and developing countries is held back by laws and regulations. The existing policy and regulatory arrangements do not help people use ICTs to live their lives; they actively hinder them, for the most part. Very often, especially in South Asia, laws and regulations restrict, or even preclude the exploitation of new low-cost technologies, such as Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is ideally suited for developing countries, it is a very low-cost and convenient technology developed by multiple small manufacturers because the United States government chose to unregulate two bands of frequencies (2.4 GHz and 5.8GHz), also called the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands. Subject to minimal safeguards, people were free to do whatever they wanted in these bands. Today, pretty much every laptop you buy has got Wi-Fi built in. The equipment is cheap and ideal for countries where purchasing power is low. However, the frequency band that Wi-Fi operates in is regulated in most other countries. In Sri Lanka, for example, the law requires operators to obtain a license for ‘every frequency emitting apparatus’ from the telecom regulator. Although some operators, like LIRNEasia’s service provider have managed to include Wi-Fi services within the scope of their licenses, the full potential of the service cannot be achieved unless the law is changed. Unlicensing or deregulation of this band would greatly reduce the cost of making use of this technology, allowing the cost to users to reflect the true cost of the technology, not arbitrary regulatory charges. This is the kind of thing that we will seek to promote and facilitate.

Our Mission
LIRNEasia’s mission is to improve the lives the people of Asia; by making it easier to use the information and communication technologies that they need; by changing the laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses; by building Asia-based human capacity through research, training, consulting and advocacy. To that end, LIRNEasia will endeavor to transform governance and regulation of ICTs in the Asian region from obstructive, inhibiting regimes, into ones that will allow opportunities for people to use ICTs in ways that will improve their lives and to expand opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators to introduce new products and services with a minimum of government interference. Our immediate priority is building a team of Asian ICT policy and regulatory professionals that can work on equal terms with the best in the world. Initially concentrating on the South Asian and Bay of Bengal areas, LIRNEasia will soon expand its scope to the rest of Asia, with the help of our regional partners. Sri Lanka will anchor this effort, but it will be a genuinely regional initiative, drawing on human capacity from the region itself. We will focus on creating and disseminating independent, useable, actionable knowledge, through applied research, on documenting and disseminating regional best practices, on training and on some forms of short-term advisory assistance to governments/parties who request it. Our primary audiences are government (including bilateral and multilateral donor agencies), the private sector within and outside Asia and civil society. We emphasize Asian expertise, but are not exclusive about it. We do case studies, but our policy is to abstract from the complexity to produce information that other countries can use.

Our culture

‘We aim to build a virtual organization that will one day make working from Bhutan as easy as working from this office. We will work in teams; we will work flexibly and we will work effectively. The organization centered on this office will help each person work to their full capacity; it will be a learning organization; a place where creativity is valued and debate encouraged. It will not be a place to clock in and out from; to engage in office intrigue; or to worry about the next promotion. It will add to your productivity, not drain it.’ -Rohan, LIRNEasia office opening

Currently, LIRNEasia’s physical presence consists of two full time staff, an executive director and a compact 15 by 20 ft office under the leafy shade of an ancient Mara tree at the back of the parking lot of SLIDA, the administrative training academy of Sri Lanka, in Colombo. Neither our size nor our location will in any way limit our possibilities. With a small administrative core, much of our work will be facilitated through extended networks across Asia. The value of this is parallel to that of networks according to Metcalfe’s law: the total value of a network is greater than the sum of the number of its users. We already have several researchers and partners across South Asia involved in our first projects. As far as technology and cost permit, LIRNEasia will function as a virtual organization, with small ‘wireless, paperless’ offices located in a few South Asian countries at a second stage. These offices will function primarily as administrative units, as well as communication points, where, for example, someone in Dhaka can participate in a project meeting, taking place in Colombo via video conferencing facilities at a Dhaka office. As well as a facilitator of innovative ICT uses, we aim to be an exemplar. Our office is one of the few Wi-Fi hotspots in Sri Lanka. At LIRNEasia’s inaugural event, the 2004 WDR Expert Forum at the Mount Lavinia Hotel, a temporary hotspot was provided for the participants, so they could check their email from their seat at the forum, saving them the hassle of going down to the hotel’s highly priced Business Center for Internet access. We also hope to collaborate or make use of the Distance Learning Center Limited, an advanced video-conferencing and IT-based teaching facility at the SLIDA office, onsite. Our website is a user friendly work and discussion platform, adapting innovations from the blogging culture. Animated discussion and debate, and is open to anyone interested. Whilst making innovative use of technologies, we emphasize the building of relationships and common values among our team members. Regular colloquia are held for our local partners to share information on discuss hot topics. In the future, we even expect that our regional partners can be virtually present at these, by the use of whatever technology possible. For the most part, the project teams will not be in the same country, so for this reason it is very important that we have effective mechanisms for the seamless coordination and completion of our work. Additionally, the significance of Colombo office as the base of LIRNEasia’s operations will gradually be reduced over a period of three years.

Supporting organizations
LIRNEasia is the Asian affiliate of LIRNE.NET, collaboration among leading universities in Denmark, the Netherlands, South Africa and the United Kingdom and now LIRNEasia. LIRNEasia’s programs over 2004-2005 will primarily be funded by IDRC [International Development Research Center] of Canada, which supports many projects in developing countries, and has over the last two decades supported hundreds of research projects in South Asia, including the ISP, Pan Lanka Networking. LIRNEasia’s work will also be funded by infoDev, a World Bank unit that has partnered with LIRNE.NET since 2001 in the World Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies. LIRNEasia is a non-profit organization incorporated under Sri Lankan law but intending to operate throughout Asia. LIRNEasia was officially launched on 17 September 2004 during the World Dialogue on Regulation’s Expert Forum in Sri Lanka.