IICD’s
mission is to help developing countries create practical and sustainable
solutions that will connect their citizens and enable them to benefit from ICT
in order to improve their livelihoods
and quality of life. Together with partners from the public, private and
non-profit sector, IICD puts knowledge, finance and innovation to work within
the field of education, the environment, governance, health, and livelihoods in
the agricultural sector. In 2007, IICD continued to work in line with its
strategy for 2006-2010. Its main focus was on making ICT part of the mainstream
processes of its project partners’ organisations and developing large-scale ICT
for development (ICT4D) programmes with the help of public-private
partnerships.
Work in the countries
Deepening and strengthening our knowledge
Organisational developments
Partnerships
Financial situation
Forecast
Over the last ten years IICD has built up ICT for development (ICT4D) programmes
in nine countries – Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Ghana, Jamaica, Mali,
Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In 2007, all nine Country Programmes were still in
implementation. Between them, they managed to initiate over 130 projects,
programmes and policy-making processes which included activities such as capacity
building, knowledge sharing, advocacy, awareness raising and lobbying. In the
year under review most Country Programmes were nearing completion, meaning that
a critical mass of at least four to five projects on the ground had been
achieved; projects which were able to run independently of IICD and demonstrate
the added value of ICT for specific sectors. As a result, IICD’s role began to change:
instead of giving providing financial, technical or operational support
directly to the local partners, these aspects now lay more in the hands of the
local partners themselves. As for IICD, its role gradually began to move
towards that of an adviser on ICT4D programmes and policies and as a broker for
knowledge and funding. To help implement its strategy for its work on the
ground, IICD also worked on a number of organisational goals such as acquiring new funds, increasing IICD’s
visibility, and strengthening the organisation through, among others, quality
certification.
Work in the
countries
In 2007, as
far as the work in the nine countries was concerned, IICD achieved most of the
targets and objectives listed in the strategic framework 2006-2010 ‘Making the Most of Experience in ICT for
Development’. During this period, the portfolio of ICT4D projects on the
ground increased from 120 to 138. Around 700,000 active users directly
benefited from the ICT facilities and information provided by these projects,
which were developed and implemented by local partner organisations in the
different countries. This was a higher number than we had initially predicted. Most
of the users were already computer literate or gained basic ICT skills through
the projects. The programs also reached around 6,400,000 indirect
beneficiaries, who can generally be categorised as passive users of
information. Most of the people who benefited from the projects belonged to
IICD’s main target group: under-privileged people with little or no formal education,
people with below average incomes, and people living in remote and rural areas with
an acute shortage of even the most basic public services such as health and
education.
As the overall
project portfolio was nearly complete, with each country having a group of
projects that were clustered in two to three sectors, few roundtable workshops
were held in 2007. Instead, more attention was paid to knowledge sharing and
supporting local training partners in their efforts to train the end-users as a
way of strengthening their organizational and institutional capacities. To
further increase the impact and outreach of its work, IICD used the experiences
gained from the projects to develop large-scale ICT4D programmes with partners.
It also used the experiences gained from the different projects to help
ministries in different focal countries to formulate and implement
ICT-strategies and policies at both national and sector level.
Education
In 2007, IICD supported 31
projects, programmes and policy-processes in the education sector in Bolivia,
Burkina Faso, Ghana, Jamaica, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The projects
concentrated on integrating ICT across the board: in both primary and secondary
schools, as well as in Teacher Training Colleges and Vocational Training Colleges.
Most of IICD’s projects focused on improving access to information,
particularly teaching materials, and to raising the quality of teaching and
learning in general. For this, teachers were trained to develop locally
relevant, digital support materials. Where the Internet was available and
affordable, networking among teachers was promoted, to enable them to exchange
experiences and content. Other projects focused on supporting inter-cultural
learning between students from countries all over the world and on improving efficiency in the education sector
by introducing ICT in the planning and administrative processes. IICD also
supported Ministries of Education by helping them to develop and implement
sector-related ICT policies and strategies.
In total, the projects reached
around 150 schools and approximately 350,000 teachers and students, parents and
support staff. At the end of 2007, an evaluation of 18 of the 30 projects in
Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia over the last five years was
carried out which provided us with a series of valuable lessons learned about
the use of ICT in education. It was interesting to see that in the past year
projects managed to increase the level of participation of teachers and
students from rural schools from 24% in 2006 to 29% in 2007. The participation
of women remained stable at 41% in 2007. In the same year, a significant
increase in awareness and empowerment of teachers and students was noticed. Nevertheless,
the impact on the quality of learning and on the teaching process as a whole decreased
slightly in 2007, from 68% to 59%, with students reporting more impact on the
sector than teachers.
To increase the impact and outreach of its work, IICD advised the Ministry
of Education in Bolivia on implementing a national program for the education
sector with financial support from the Netherlands Embassy, SIDA and DANIDA.
Together with other advisory agencies – such as GeSCI - IICD also provided
assistance in the area of capacity development and monitoring and evaluation.
In Jamaica, a public-private partnership - The Jamaica Collaborative for
Universal Technology Education (J-CUTE) - was in the process of formulating a
national teacher training programme. Meanwhile, education policies were also
being formulated in Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Zambia.
Governance
In 2007, IICD supported 24 projects, programmes and policy processes in
Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia in the governance
sector. The projects helped local communities to voice their needs, learn about
public services, and pressure policy-makers to engage in regular dialogue. Some
projects also helped to improve governmental efficiency by using ICT to improve
the flow of information and workflows.
The projects reached around 27,000 active users; primarily civil
servants and technical staff from civil society organisations. In 2007, 11
projects were surveyed and analysed. The survey revealed that levels of satisfaction,
awareness and empowerment were still as high as previous years, fluctuating
between 60% and 80%. Of all the ICT-enabled initiatives in the different
sectors in which IICD is working, the impact on sector-related indicators -
including the efficiency of the administration and the transparency of
government information – was the highest of all sectors.
Two eGovernance projects turned out to be a role model for the future
integration of ICT at the district level. In Tanzania, plans were developed to
replicate the Kinondoni project; a project situated in the district of Kinondoni
which is helping to improve the flow of information flow between local
government offices in the district. In Uganda, a similar project called
Districtnet was chosen as a model by various development partners as well as the
Ministry of Local Government to form the basis of a model for national
up-scaling.
Health
In 2007, IICD supported 17
projects, programmes and policy-processes in the health sector in Ghana, Mali,
Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. The projects focused on using ICT in Health
Management Information Systems (HMIS) to manage health information, particularly
in hospitals, to allow for the better management of patients, finances, drugs,
treatments and diseases; to provide communication tools to support online
consultations between doctors and specialists, allowing better diagnoses and
treatment of patients; and to support the development of improved training
materials for the continuous professional training of medical staff, similar to
the applications in the education sector.
The health programs reached around
60 regional and district-level hospitals and health centres, with its outreach
rapidly extending to other institutions. The 52,000 active users of ICT included
various groups of health workers, including management, administrative staff,
doctors and nurses. In the year under review, a survey of a number of the
health projects showed that there was a much larger level of participation of
women than in projects in other sectors, which can be explained by their strong
numbers in the health sector workforce, especially in lower positions. Most of
the users (82%) were found in rural areas. In general, it was found that the
users in this sector demonstrate high levels of personal interest alongside
their professional interest in building their own capacities, and this extends
to the use of ICT. After a significant increase in 2006, again in 2007 slightly
more than 50% of the participants found that the ICT projects directly
contributed to more efficient and effective health care services.
To leverage its experience in the
health sector, IICD was involved in an ICT policy formulation process as part
of the wider support it provided to the National ICT policy. In Uganda and
Tanzania, IICD started implementing a large-scale ICT for health programme with
major faith-based health organisations and CORDAID.
Livelihoods
In 2007, the livelihoods sector
was still the largest sector of focus for IICD, with a total of 65 projects,
programmes and policies. The projects reached approximately 180,000 active users
and no fewer than 2,500,000 beneficiaries. These users primarily included small
farmers and farming associations, traders and trade organisations and, mostly
informal, small and medium-sized businesses. The users were reached through a
combination of information centres with Internet access, mobile services, rural
radio and television and voice radio. In general, projects focussed on providing information to farmers on inputs,
market prices, and supply and demand; exchanging scientific and
experience-based information about traditional and modern production techniques;
and providing ICT-based business support services such as multimedia tools for
planning and administration, marketing and promotion.
An analysis of 23 projects showed
that the involvement and participation of small farmers in rural areas had
again increased in 2007. This was also reflected in the high levels of
satisfaction with the ICT facilities provided through the projects, including
access to information centres and the Internet. Not surprisingly, the economic
impact as a result of using ICT turned out, once again, to be highest in all
sectors in which IICD was involved as the aim of most of the livelihood
projects was specifically to increase revenues. The projects also showed a high
impact in terms of efficiency, cooperation and productivity. Interestingly enough,
no significant differences were found between the impact levels on men and
women: with ICT being relevant to both user groups.
To increase the impact and outreach of its work, IICD started to advise
the Ministry of Agriculture in Bolivia on the formulation of a land-use
information system and on upgrading an agricultural portal, and in Santa Cruz it
helped the Departmental Government to formulate a programme for agriculture
information in 15 provinces. In Ghana, IICD assisted the Ministry of Food and
Agriculture to develop an ICT policy for the agriculture sector. In Uganda, a
series of programmes were in formulation for the executive agencies operating
under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry, while at the
same time collaboration was started with SNV to replicate one of IICD’s
projects – the Uganda Commodity Exchange (UCE) project.
Deepening
and strengthening our knowledge
Capturing lessons learned from the field and sharing this knowledge both
cross-country with local partners and within the international development
sector remained an important pillar of IICD’s approach. The lessons were re-invested
into better ICT4D practices which will ultimately help to improve the impact of
ICT for development. In 2007, IICD focussed primarily on capturing lessons
learned with regard to rural access, health, ICT4D policies and eGovernance. A number of knowledge sharing products were
produced, most of them with regard to Rural
Access. In 2007, the National ICT for Development Networks in IICD’s focal
countries also started to periodically review the connectivity solutions and
challenges in their country. Other topics that were addressed in publications
concerned ICT Policy development - (a
publication was produced together with knowledge sharing partners APC and the
Communication Initiative); Health - a thematic report was written jointly by
Cordaid and IICD with regard to Health Management Information Systems and a
student from the University of Amsterdam carried out research for her Master
thesis on the IICD HMIS projects. An impact study entitled ICTs for Education: Impact and Lessons Learned from IICD-supported
activities in the Education Sector was also published in November 2007, in
time for distribution at the third Global Knowledge Conference in December.
For effective knowledge sharing,
IICD used a variety of communication channels including the dissemination of
print products (like the ones mentioned above); online communication platforms
(for example, iConnect, Dgroups, Itrainonline); and international conferences,
seminars and symposiums that focussed on ICT4D. To specifically promote the transnational
sharing of knowledge amongst IICD’s local partners, IICD organised one Cross
Country Learning Event (CCLE) in Tanzania on the experiences of partners using
ICTs in the health sector.
To stimulate international
knowledge sharing and expertise building among development actors on the use of new
Internet tools for networking, knowledge exchange and collaboration - also known
as Web 2.0 - IICD co-organised the first
ever Web2forDev Conference for agriculture, rural development and natural
resource management in 2007. The conference was initiated by CTA and
co-organised by IICD, FAO, GTZ, APC, ACP Secretariat, Euforic, Université
Cheikh Anta DIOP, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Dgroups, IFAD and
CGIAR.
Organisational
developments
In 2007, IICD had thirty-two employees (18 female and 14 male), or 28.21
in full-time employment (FTE). Staff turnover was just under ten percent (8), which
was very similar to 2006. Absenteeism rates increased slightly to 2,96% compared to 2.78% in 2006,
but remained much lower than the percentage of 5.59% in 2005.
In 2007, Human
Resource Management was high on the agenda as different skills and organisation
structures were needed as the work on the ground started to change gradually
from project management, training and coaching to advising, training and
coaching on ICT for development programmes and policies. Also high on the
agenda was the improvement of the reporting and accountability mechanism. For
this, a new Management Information System was developed to enable staff members
working in-country to manage the information regarding their activities on one
single platform. As a result, not only did the quarterly reporting process
to the Board improve, but so too did the information provided to management which
they in turn needed in order to take strategic decisions. Donors also benefited
from the system as the MIS can provide overviews of the deliverables whenever
it is needed. The same deliverables are also used by the Corporate
Communications department to update publications.
A major step forward was
taken with regard to quality control as IICD managed to obtain ISO 9001:2000
Quality Certification in 2007. Quality management is now firmly rooted in the
organisation.
Partnerships
To make the most of IICD’s work on the ground, IICD has always sought
operational and strategic alliances with both southern and northern-based
partners from the public, private and non-profit sector. Partnerships help to
share information, bring in specific experience, and help to find the necessary
funds to implement the Country Programmes. In 2007, IICD’s attention was mainly
directed towards entering new partnerships to obtain extra funds and to prolong
existing partnerships.
IICD’s main funding partner continued to be the Dutch Directorate-General
for International Cooperation (DGIS). Alongside DGIS, IICD also worked together
with numerous partners from different sectors, both national and international.
In the Netherlands, IICD extended its existing partnerships with its non-profit partners: Cordaid, Hivos and
PSO. New partnerships were also signed with War Child and TNO. With regard to
private sector partners, IICD renewed its existing partnerships with Manobi,
Inter Access and Cap Gemini and established new partnerships with Altran and
Atos Origin Learning Solutions.
IICD was less successful in acquiring new partners in the international
field of development. It did continue its collaboration with the Swiss
Development Corporation (SDC), although it has not yet managed to find a replacement
for the partnership with the United Kingdom Department for International
Development (DFID) which came to and end after six years because of
organisational changes within the Department. Nevertheless, a number of
discussions have begun with international funding partners and hopefully this
will result in a new partnership in 2008. With regard to knowledge sharing, a
new partnership was developed with CTA and collaboration continued with APC,
the Communication Initiative, GeSCI, OneWorld International, PSO, Bellanet,
ITRAINonline, BCO, Dgroups and the Global Knowledge Partnership.
Financial
situation
The total income available
for the year under review amounted to €5,999,012. The larger part of this income was
provided by the Dutch Directorate-General for Development
Cooperation (DGIS). The subsidy
of DGIS began in 2006 and will run through until 31 December 2010. The total
income in 2007 provided by other donors such as the United Kingdom Department
for International Development (DFID), the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation (SDC), private
sector partners and Dutch not-for-profit organisations such as Cordaid, Hivos
and PSO, amounted to 24%.
Forecast
In the coming year, IICD will continue its current strategy and pursue the
integration or alignment of projects into government-supported or donor-funded
development programmes at the national level. IICD is aiming to have 50% of all
projects running independently from IICD. To increase the impact and outreach
of its work, IICD is also striving to work on two or three ICT for development
programmes at the sector level in each of its focal countries.
In addition, IICD will continue its efforts to document the experiences
and lessons learned from its work on the ground. The key themes for 2008 are
education, livelihood opportunities, health, capacity development, and
innovation (thereby focusing on appropriate and sustainable solutions for rural
access and the applications of innovative web tools). To stimulate internal
knowledge sharing and expertise building, IICD will also start using Thematic
Learning Communities; discussion forums where IICD staff members can share
their experiences with regard to specific themes.
With regard to the organisational strategy, IICD will continue its
current strategy and focus on the strengthening the organisation, increasing
its visibility, and acquiring funds and expertise through partnerships. In 2008,
IICD hopes to enter at least one new partnership with an as yet unidentified
NGO and an institutional donor. Public-private partnerships remain important
for acquiring innovative technologies, as well as funding.
On behalf of the Management Team
Mrs Caroline Figuères, Managing Director
