Fellow Kenyans, What I found rather profound during the dialogue was Dr. Gituro Wainaina's observation that we are doing badly in some of those poverty dimensions *not because* we do not have national capacity (for broadband etc). Later on I thought and realised that like Crystal, Pius and Edith are observing, the Digital village and Pasha projects have remained merely on paper for the last couple of years. I stand corrected but it appears these initiatives are also pegged on yet another incomplete project - the NOFBI project (which was somehow declared complete sometime in 2009). Does anyone know how the implementers of the digital village, pasha and NOFBI projects are fairing in government *performance contracting*. I get this feeling the institutions responsible score themselves high on these projects yet the projects' customers are still waiting for the services to get to them. Sorry to sound negative but I think there is a general lack of '*customer focus*' among our public institutions. On a related note, has anyone had luck publicly retrieving *performance contract reports* of government institutions? Regards On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Crystal Watley Kigoni < crystal@voicesofafrica.org> wrote:
I couldn't agree more. We have spent years working on models that work for rural communities in Kenya only to face challenge after challenge. The sad part is that while the models were developed for Kenya and have limited deployment here and are in great demand by other countries.
You can see examples of our work at www.voicesofafrica.org.
Dear Edith ,
Concur there is sufficient human capital contrary to Rwanda , ironically there is no actual dissemination of services to the BOP....there is
On 12/2/10, Pius Walela <PWalela@strathmore.edu> wrote: dire
need to hasten the trickle down effect. However mobile technologies can serve as a key to overcome this challenge...
Regards.
From: Edith Adera [mailto:eadera@idrc.or.ke] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 6:04 PM To: Pius Walela Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: RE: Universal Access in Kenya (Is it really working?)
Dear Pius,
I'm not sure that I see any pasha and digital villages around. We "talk" about them, yes. The study shows that we need to do more than "talk". Rwanda stands tall when it comes to universal access while they are struggling with human capital. We stand tall on human capital, but unfortunately don't have these services penetrating to the rural and remote areas (bottom of the pyramid) where they can begin to make a difference in addressing the multi-dimensional aspects of poverty!
Edith.
From: Pius Walela [mailto:PWalela@strathmore.edu] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 5:42 PM To: Edith Adera Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: RE: Universal Access in Kenya (Is it really working?)
Key challenge is the implementation. Its true there is substantial progress (Pasha ,Digital villages etc) what is lacking is the necessary structure and impetus to actually do what is necessary.
From: kictanet-bounces+pwalela=strathmore.edu@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+pwalela <kictanet-bounces%2Bpwalela>= strathmore.edu@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Edith Adera Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 5:10 PM To: Pius Walela Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Universal Access in Kenya (Is it really working?)
Listers,
For those of you who missed the ICT/Poverty conference this morning, one of the prominent issues that came out is the fact that Kenya is NOT doing enough to address universal access to communication services! As a result, issues of vulnerability, asset poverty and physical poverty (access to services) persist! Comparative results from our neighbours in East Africa shows that they are scoring on some of these issues.
There's talk of digital villages and the UA Fund - yet there is no delivery! what's not going right?
Edith
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-- Crystal "Naliaka" Watley Kigoni Executive Director Voices of Africa for Sustainable Development crystal@voicesofafrica.org http://www.voicesofafrica.org/
Intersat Africa, Ltd Rural Internet Kiosks Project Coordinator crystal.kigoni@intersat.ae
Twitter: VOA_Crystal Skype: crystal.naliaka Facebook group: Voices of Africa
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