Notes from the eDevelopment Thematic Group event World Bank Day @ mHealth Summit – mHealth from policy to implementation.

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Session 3: Policy Perspectives on Using Mobile Technology for Better Health Outcomes

A key step in the process of mainstreaming and scaling-up mHealth is a sound eHealth and mHealth policy at the country level. The panelists in this session will present their views on developing a successful e/mHealth policy and provide examples of best practice and learning from around world.

• Panel Discussion

Chair: Elizabeth J. Ashbourne, Lead, Global Health Information Forums, World Bank/Health Metrics Network

Questions?

• can mHealth policy be created without a eHealth policy?
• are the policy priorities that are also connected to mHealth but lie in a different sector?
• who should be at the table discussing mHealth services to push the frontiers?

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Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, Director for eHealth, World Health Organization (via video conference from Geneva)

mHealth is an integral part of eHealth

• Important: mHealth as part of eHealth plan, not an island

Expected: 45% of traffic on phone will be data

Some global concerns related to mHealth

Importance of mHealth

• it’s used
• it’s people-centered

Research literature: mHealth is here to stay

Currently WHO conducting second global eHealth survey

• 75 countries
• end of November
• 15 of 20 African countries have eHealth initiatives

Lack of knowledge is #1 reason which prevent applications of mHealth, other reasons: operating costs, infrastructure, policy

Comparison Europe – Africa

• different barriers in mHealth
• no solutions can be just transferred

Issues in mHealth

• sustainability
• data exchange & interoperability
• data security

Important points

• Involving all stakeholders
• We need to find solutions which work on different networks and work everywhere if possible
• Multilingualism – not only English

WHO – big global eHealth initiative & we are happy to collaborate with other institutions

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Alison Bloch, m-Health advisor, GSMA

Mobile vs. Internet

• centralized & no competition vs. decentralized & everybody can put up their service
• slow innovation vs. easy innovation
• easy to identify people vs. anonymous

There are very many issues around health systems which include policy

How to engage public and private sector to work together in creating good regulations – fostering innovations

“Information makes markets work and markets improve welfare” – but also question of data ownership, privacy and security

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Karl Brown, Assistant Director for Applied Technology, Rockefeller Foundation

Issue: ordering when policy comes into discussion

• technology arrives first
• then policy
• then capacity building

Role for policy? How to foster innovation?

Over time mHealth, eHealth and traditional health information systems will merge

mHealth shouldn’ be a seperate policy sector, should be part of general health sector

Currently – eHealth councils are emerging in various countries

• private and public organizations discussing about regulations

We need to have a sense what such systems cost in the long term

Should there be a standardization in eHealth policies or just a checklist?

• Approaches to these policies is very varied in different countries
• Even in different ministries

How to link national policy efforts to international policy efforts?

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Patty Mechael, Earth Institute

What are we trying to achieve with this technology?

We should start to have guidelines to help countries figure out where to focus towards achieving the objectives concerning mHealth

Take a look at existing eHealth policies and see where the gaps are

The industry of mHealth around mServices has also to be taken into account

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Q & A session

Ghana:

Security and legislation – mHealth presents a lot of issues, World Bank can help member countries to develop a frameworkfor that

How can we identify projects that have potential?

Russia:

It’s important to develop a legislation to back up tele-medical services

We are ready to share our experience and knowledge about mobile & telemedical systems in rural areas

Tanzania:

Is it necessary to have a seperate policy for eHealth – if eGovernment is already covering that sector?

D.C. Audience:

How do we align comercial with public policy interests? What is being defined in terms of economic cost-benefit analysis?

We are talking about two different policies – we must remember health policy and how to integrate eHealth and mHealth in the traditional health sector. What makes sense and what doesn’t?

How to target the appropriate level of policy?

How is the role of the academic sector?

Answers:

Patty Mechael:

• Security & flexible policies – example: Ghana was open to developing guidelines before policies
• mHealth and mFinance should work together
• mHealth vs. eHealth vs. eGovernment: you have to have the connections between all these and find out where to get economies of scale

Najeeb Al-Shorbaji:

• What we are trying to do is to improve the health situation of people
• We have to make sure the content in high quality, no matter if m- or e-
• The “e” will disappear when “e” will be everywhere – the important thing is health
• There is an economic value in ICT – time saving, quality data, … – we need consisten, evidence based approaches to prove that to the governments
• Policy first or practice first? There are problems around eHealth – so we have to put in some guidelines, we can’t develop a policy for something we don’t know
• We have to keep health data of people away from other data

Alison Bloch:

• How to empower users / patients
• Business models? Can we do good and do well? Larger topic – bringing many groups to the table and try to create such models

Karl Brown:

• The future of eHealth is health
• Pilot projects? The country should think of what the long term costs are, that may benefit sustainable projects
• m-Pesa was informal system and evolved by itself
• As much innovation in mHealth should be fostered – without constraining it with policies upfront

Notes from the eDevelopment Thematic Group event World Bank Day @ mHealth Summit – mHealth from policy to implementation.

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Part 1 : Global Policy Dialogue on mHealth

Welcome & Site introductions

Deepak Bhatia, Lead e-Government specialist, Global ICT, World Bank
Oleg Petrov, eDevelopment TG coordinator, Global ICT, World Bank
David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance

mHealth as catalyst for measurable health impacts

Especially World Bank mHealth projects are being looked at

There are a lot of opportunities for synergies

How can we work together more effective to deliver more efficient health care?

It’s extremely exciting, there’s a lot to be done – we have an important mission

Introduction of country offices – a lot of participants and discussions there

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Session 1: Opening & Keynote

• Introduction

Yaw Ansu, Human Development Director, Africa Region, World Bank

Africa is facing great challenges

mHealth and eHealth in general has great potential for the continent to help

We are working closely with a lot of partners in several projects

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Philippe Dongier, Sector Manager, Global ICT, World Bank

It’s not just about technology but also about other issues – about which we will discuss today as well

We didn’t see the boom in mobile phones coming, now we have a tremendous opportunity to reach people and do things differently – in many fields

The future of the internet is mobile or wireless – as well in the health sector

Challenges are about regulations – telecom operators and about the business model

What’s the role of developers, public sector, private sector, …

Where will the innovation come from? Actually from all the sectors

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• Opening Remarks

Rakesh Nangia, Operations Director, Human Development Network, World Bank

There will be challenges and innovations – we will only be limited by our creative thinking, not by technology

There are shocking statistics on health in developing countries

Mobile technology has already achieved quite some things – e.g. empowering women in Bangladesh

“Leapfrogging” is discussed often – maybe too often

We need to to think of how technology can bring healthcare to the people when the physical proximity is hard to overcome

Example: Uganda

• quiz to increase knowledge about HIV/AIDS
• increased testing of HIV of 40%

Example: South Africa

• only 5% of people get tested for HIV
• government sent out phone numbers of places where people can be tested

Example: Rwanda

• SMS to remind people to take their pills

Lots of interesting uses

Similarly – health workers are trained to look at epidemics

mHealth is an innovative way to get health care closer to the people

But it’s not about technology, as Phillipe already said

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Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, Regional Vice-President, Africa Region, World Bank

In many ways we haven’t pushed the frontiers of technology yet

We have to realize the potentials of ICTs, we can’t just let that pass by us

We do well with tackling poverty if we focus of the asset of the poor

• they assume the ownership of a mobile as one of the biggest thing in their life
• we have to focus on that

Innovation can push us to look at solutions – which is reflected in this kind of summit the World Bank is hosting

Mobile phones are omnipresent in Africa – the mobile revolution, an important progress

seven years ago Nigeria had just about 250 000 fixed line phones

• which brought with itself various forms of corruption
• the regulations which came improved the whole situation
• the World Bank was involved in that, which is a great benefit
• now: 250 million mobile phones

Knowledge is power – telephones in Africa are not just a tool for communications

• it’s a social, political, knowledge tool
• we have the opportunity to use it a health delivery tool as well

Lack of access to health infrastructure prevent us from reaching our goals

ICTs presents us a lot of opportunities

The patient the primary focus, the results must focus on the patient

With only seven years left to the MDGs we need to be really bold and embrace new ways of getting things done – tradition can sometimes kill, we need to rethink our ways

It’s not just politics which is the answer to all problems, there’s also technology which can achieve things

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• Keynote Address

Dr Agnes Binagwaho, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health (via Videoconference from Kigali)

When we in Rwanda look at the agenda we are happy, because it focuses on the use of health in the development countries and countries facing the greatest health problems

We need to combine health with effective communication

Communication technologies have become effective tools to fight diseases

Technology is making health care more possible and more precise

Helahtcare is being turned into a ICT industry

Rwanda has adopted the use of technology in all sectors – health included

• technology in hospitals
• building manpower by education
• adopting national and international standards

Use of mobile phone is dependent on other indicators

• coverage 98%
• penetration 21%
• we try to increase the penetration

TRACNet – mobile phone & internet based tool which we use

• significantly improved the way AIDS is treated in Rwanda
• people are well monitored

Also more application – mobile based – are being developed

Rwanda: 45 000 community health workers all around the country, several projects to realize their potential – AIDS and maternal health

Trying to foster exchange between grass roots initiatives and hospitals

mHealth is an indispensable tool to deliver helathcare today and a key priority in Rwanda

As announced, on 28 October the eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank is organizing the “World Bank Day @ mHealth Summit“, where speakers from various sectors share their views on mHealth and sample projects are presented. The event was planned in the context of the mHealth Summit, but focuses more on the situation in developing countries.

If you want to watch the event online – follow the link to the live webcast registration.

If you want to get updates, ask questions or post comments, please follow the eDevelopment group on Twitter and use the hashtag #mhealth09 for the World Bank day, and the hastag #mHS09 for the general summit.

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AGENDA (from the Wold Bank Day event page)

• 8:15am – 9:00am: Registration and Breakfast

Part 1 : Global Policy Dialogue on mHealth

• 9:00am – 9:15am: Welcome & Site introductions

Deepak Bhatia, Lead e-Government specialist, Global ICT, World Bank
Oleg Petrov, eDevelopment TG coordinator, Global ICT, World Bank
David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance

Session 1: Opening & Keynote

Co-Chairs: Eva Jarawan, Sector Manager, Africa Health Department, World Bank & Philippe Dongier, Sector Manager, Global ICT, World Bank

• 9:15am – 9:25am: Introduction

• 9:25am – 9:40am: Opening Remarks

Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, Regional Vice-President, Africa Region, World Bank
Rakesh Nangia, Operations Director, Human Development Network, World Bank

• 9:40am – 9:55am: Keynote Address

Hon. Dr. Richard Sezibera, Minister of Health, Rwanda (via videoconference from Kigali)

Session 2: Global Overview, Country Cases and Perspectives

According to a recent UNF-Vodafone Foundation study, the use of mHealth is being implemented in several developing countries with using a number of applications such as data collection and analysis; education and awareness; and monitoring and surveillance. The panelists in this session will provide an overview of the mHealth movement and describe actual project implementations in the field followed by an interactive comment and Q&A video conference session from several country representatives.

• 09:55am – 11:20am: Panel Discussion

Chair: Deepak Bhatia, Lead eGovernment Specialist, Global ICT, World Bank

– Global Overview: Mitul Shah, Senior Director, the UN Foundation
– Mexico Case: Rodrigo Saucedo, mHealth Lead Researcher, Carso Institute
– Kenya Case: Yusuf Ibrahim, Training and Support Manager, DataDyne and Kenyan Ministry of Health
– Cambodia/Mekong Region Case: Romdoul Kim, Director of Government Affairs, Mekong Region, InSTEDD iLab (via VC from Phnom Penh) and Eric Rassmussen, CEO, InSTEDD

Questions & Remarks by Participating countries: Armenia, Russia, Moldova, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Kenya

• 11:20am – 11:35 am: Coffee Break

Session 3: Policy Perspectives on Using Mobile Technology for Better Health Outcomes

A key step in the process of mainstreaming and scaling-up mHealth is a sound eHealth and mHealth policy at the country level. The panelists in this session will present their views on developing a successful e/mHealth policy and provide examples of best practice and learning from around world.

• 11:35am – 12:15pm: Panel Discussion

Chair: Elizabeth J. Ashbourne, Lead, Global Health Information Forums, World Bank/Health Metrics Network

– Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, Director for eHealth, World Health Organization (via video conference from Geneva)
– Alison Bloch, m-Health advisor, GSMA
– Karl Brown, Assistant Director for Applied Technology, Rockefeller Foundation

• 12:15pm – 12:45 pm: Q & A session

• 12:45pm – 1:45am: Lunch

Part 2: Scaling-up Mobile Technology Innovations in Health Sector Projects

Session 4: Scaling Up Mobile Innovations in World Bank Health Sector Projects

This session will provide an overview of the potential contributions of ICT to health services in the countries that are facing greatest health problems, and how mHealth (and eHealth in general) can provide a new set of tools for Africa and other developing countries to tackle the long-standing health challenges. The session will discuss how ICT can help the Bank’s health operations to achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively as well as the key constraints. The session will also brainstorm how Bank can play a more active role in exploring and using ICT and the ways of scaling up ICT applications in World Bank health projects.

• 1:45pm – 2:30 pm: Panel Discussion

Chair: Eva Jarawan, Sector Manager, Africa Health Department, World Bank
Presentation by Feng Zhao, eHealth Coordinator, Africa Health Department, World Bank

– Agnes Soucat, Advisor, Africa Health Department, World Bank
– Deepak Bhatia, Lead eGovernment Specialist, Global ICT Dept, World Bank
– Souheil Marine, Head of ICT Application and Cybersecurity, International Telecommunication Union (via videoconference from Geneva)
– Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, Director for eHealth, World Health Organization (via video conference from Geneva)

• 2:30 pm – 2:50 pm: Q & A session

• 2:50pm – 3:00 pm: Coffee Break

Session 5: Showcasing mHealth Applications

This session will spotlight several mHealth applications that are being piloted and implemented. The panelists will provide demonstrations of their respective applications, provide an overview of why the applications were created and the direct impact in l countries where the technology has been introduced.

• 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Panel Discussion

Co-Chairs: Armin Fidler, Advisor, Health, Nutrition and Population, World Bank, Deepak Bhatia Lead eGovernment Specialist, Global ICT, World Bank

– Paul Meyer (TBC), Voxiva
– Eric Rasmussen, CEO, INSTEDD
– Josh Nesbit, Executive Director, Frontline SMS
– Erica Kochi, Co-Lead Innovation Group UNICEF
– Hajo van Beijma, co-Founder of Text to Change

Commentator: Arleen Cannata Seed, Senior e-Government Specialist, CITPO, World Bank

• 4:00pm – 4:15 pm: Q & A session

Session 6: Operationalizing mHealth: How do we translate mHealth applications into measurable health outcomes

Beyond the widespread global usage of mHealth applications, there remains a gap due to the lack of data and long-term impact assessments on health outcomes to validate the effectiveness of mHealth. Evaluation frameworks and studies are currently in process to fill this gap and this will be the subject of discussion between the panelists in this session along with the importance of monitoring and evaluation frameworks for this nascent sector.

• 4:15pm – 5:00 pm: Panel Discussion

Chairs: Armin Fidler, Advisor, Health, Nutrition and Population and Claire Thwaites, UN Foundation

– Rachel Glennerster, MIT Poverty Labs
– Julie Smith, Director of Public-Private Partnerships, CDC Foundation
– Andrew Stern, Partner, Dalberg Global Advisors
– Patty Mechael, mHealth and Telemedicine Advisor for the Earth Institute

• 5:00 pm – 5:15 pm: Q & A session

• 5:15 pm – 5:30pm: Closing Remarks

Eva Jarawan, Sector Manager, Africa Health Department, Armin Fidler, Advisor, Health, Nutrition and Population, World Bank, Deepak Bhatia, Lead eGovernment Specialist, Global ICT, World Bank, Claire Thwaites, UN Foundation

On Wednesday, 28 October, an exciting event by the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group is taking place. Its title is “m-Health: From Policy to Implementation” or “World Bank Day @ mHealth summit” and it is held in conjunction with the mHealth Summit which takes place in Washington on the following two days. It is supposed to be a forum for exchange on mobile health topics and experiences, speakers from the public sectors will present the policy side, whereas successful implementations in projects such as FrontlineSMS or Text To Change will be showcased.

The event will take place in Washington again, but also be broadcasted over the web.

What: m-Health: From Policy to Implementation – World Bank Day @ mHealth summit

Where: Washington DC, also available via webcast

When: 28 October, 9:00 Washington time

ICT4D.at will of course cover the event on Twitter and here on the blog.

From the eDevelopment Thematic Group “m-Health: From Policy to Implementation” page:

Jointly sponsored by World Bank Group (HDNHE, AFTHE, GICT, IFC) and UN Foundation/mHealth Alliance, in collaboration with FNIH, NIH and others, the World Bank Day @ mHealth Summit will raise awareness of the possibilities for mobile-enabled innovations for improving health care and health care outcomes in developing countries and seeks to:

• Contribute to putting m-health on the map of the mainstream public health agenda.
• Explore options as to how to translate mHealth applications into measurable health outcomes.
• Provide concrete examples of experience at the country level – what questions to ask, what to look for, what tools are available, and what are the policy implications for implementation.
• Establish a basis for future collaboration and continued dialogue on mHealth.

This unique one-day workshop will bring together lessons, innovations, and perspectives from the practitioners and policy makers. The workshop will discuss specific case studies and country perspectives on mHealth and address scaling up mobile innovations in World Bank Health Sector Projects. World Bank @ mHealth Day is integral part of the mHealth Summit focusing on Mobile Technologies as a platform for health research and health care delivery. The mHealth Summit is an unprecedented event that will bring together researchers, policy-makers, collaborators and visionaries from around the world to exchange ideas, novel approaches, research and findings surrounding mHealth issues both in the United States and in developing countries.

Last Wednesday the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group held a workshop on “The Singapore Experience” – how the small country Singapore achieved the transformation to become economically that successful and one of the countries with the most government services accessible by mobile phone or internet.

The notes from the different speakers can be accessed under the following links:

• eTG workshop – The Singapore Experience – part 1
• eTG workshop – The Singapore Experience – part 2

The reason for the whole eTransformation was the desire to attract foreign investment on the one hand, and the will to foster public construction to provide public housing for the citizens. This led to improvements in regulations and the attempt in many sectors to hide the complexity of the government bureaucracy away from the individuals and companies, providing the services of many agencies on an online platform.

The speakers came mostly from the private sector, as Singapore managed its transformation mostly by forming public-private partnerships, with companies providing government services. These companies have gained a lot of experience now, and also consult other nations all over the world on their strategy to implement eServices.

One key aspect of Singapore’s eTransformation was the presence of a long term vision concerning ICT which was in place for 20 years already. The vision was created with changes in technology and administration processes in mind – so these changes didn’t render the vision useless, but were rather absorbed by it.

Another substantial point in Singapore’s eTransformation process was the persistent work with all stakeholders to have everybody on the “same page” of the process. The different agencies involved in the provided services were trained to implement ICT and to share data digitally.

All in all the event gave a complete and interesting insight into the development of the ICT strategy of Singapore and showcased a role model for other nations aiming to focus on the provision of eServices to their citizens. Also it was encouraging to hear about Singapore’s interests in helping and supporting other nations.

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Sharing on Government Transformation by Crimsonlogic Pte Ltd

Topic: eGovernance to yield greater socio-economic impact

Speaker: Mr. TAN Sian Lip, Vice President

Public private partnership company

• built by Singapore government
• run as a private company
• providing government services

Singapore Trade Facilitation Journey

On the last 20 years

• Almost everybody in the trade-sector changed their technology
• Administrative roles changed in the last 20 years
• The public didn’t experience any change

Tradenet

• Harmonizing trade admission procedures for companies evolved
• “TradeNet -World’s First Nationwide Electronic Data Interchange System”
• Minimizing processing time for admission to 1 minute
• there exist 2 business case studies, it has been well documented
• many international partnerships, facilitating trade on ports worldwide

Singapore eJudiciary

LawNet

• Platform for processing legal information
• Keeping data digital
• Less hardcopies
• Higher clearance rate
• Cases take shorter time
• Transparency through online availability of cases
• good rating in international comparison

Lessons learnt – Principles of eGovernment

• The application of IT to transform the way governments work, to make them friendlier and more effective
• It is not (just) a large portfolio of technology projects
• It is a large ongoing program of activities involving public administrators and technologists in rethinking how government & the public can work together, and then applying technology to effect the changes

Infrastructure: e-things change all the time, there is always something better

• you should plan carefully so that changes don’t destroy your system, but can be absorbed

Constraints:

• There are never enough resources to design & build all possible eServices

It’s important to build the eServices which have the biggest impact on citizens and business

Partnerships between governments and private companies in developing and implementing services on a risk-and investment-sharing basis

Q & A:

Is there a legalframework for exchangig data online?

• electronic transactions act – very broad
• Computer misuse act
• In Singapore PKI is not so common
• Electronic banking has existed for years and transactions not signed with PKI

Is there competition for IDA in Singapore?

• yes, there is international competition, other companies are bidding for contracts too, but so far no success

Who selects what applications have the highest impact on citizens and businesses?

• The specific agencies decide what the governmental agenda should be
• Then they have to fight for the budget

Common components for eServices?

• Governance is primary
• Architecture is handmade into it
• Basic network, basic logging mechanism, web service gateways, portal infrastructure should be common

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Sharing on Government Transformation by NCS Pte Ltd

Topic: Effective Development – Why is there a need for Public Services Infrastructure (PSi)

Speaker: Mr. NG Beng Lim, General Manager

Company: NCS – national computer system

• providing government services

Key concerns in Singapore:

• economic growth
• education
• utilization of resources
• making society a better place
• how to use IT to promote these issues?

Areas to address:

• governance, administration
• services for citizens
• integrating IT into society
• better management of resources
• developing economy based on IT – in the long term

Every country has to have a clear masterplan what to do with IT

• But how to come from the masterplan to an implementation and successful rollout?

Transformation of IT during the 80s and 90s to today

• Nowadays the prerequisites for successful eServices rollout are ideal
• In early 2000 – government in Singapore started Public Services Infrastructure
• Interface for people to interact with the government
• open infrastructure to more providers – including the private sector

Public Services Infrastructure Components:

• Government Network
• Common Data Centre
• Application Infrastructure
• Common Desktop Services

Features:

• Single sign on
• SMS, email gateway
• personalisation
• service delivery framwork
• ePayment
• Orchestration
• multilingual

Results:

• PSi was started 10 years ago
• Today: SHINE (Service Wide Hosting Environment) by NCS
• Billing model: Subscription-based
• Evens out peak CPU utilisation
• SHINE: Hosting, services and storing on demand

NCS – in the mean time a lot of experience in eGovernment & National ICT Planning

Q & A:

Does the government have a centralised architecture?

• Yes, in Singapore the government came up with a centralized infrastructure

What about security standards?

• The IT infrastructure has to come with an own security framework already

Key objecticves in terms of consilidating the data?

• Make people use the system
• “Selling” tools to the ministries

Many agencies – one government. Government has to have the oversight, but agencies have to have the freedom to act on themselves.

Is there a trend for re-centralization?

• It’s technologically possible
• Is it possible to monitor all local spots where services are running?

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “The Singapore Experience“ on 30 September in Washington DC.

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Welcome Remarks by Mr. Deepak Bhatia, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, GICT and Ms. Angela PNG, Deputy Director of International Organisation, International Enterprise Singapore

Knowledge sharing event – how Singapore became a leader in eGovernment

Singapore ranked first in eGovernment ranking in four consecutive years, global competitiveness index: 3rd

One factor for that – policy to utilize ICTs in national development

A lot of problems to overcome – e.g. technophobia

Today: ICT masterplan, holistic

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Opening Remarks by Mr. Sun Vithespongse, Southeast Asia Executive Director and Mr. Mohsen Khalil, Director, Global ICT Department (TBC)

Singapore:

• small country with no resources
• therefore it has to be developed in ICTs to become efficient

World Bank group is the biggest sponsor in eGovernment – and has experiences large successes

World Bank should keep on the work, despite the financial crisis

Development in the industry

• a lot of innovation is happening in the developing world
• south-to-north and south-to-south developments

What can ICTs be useful for?

• Powerful transformation forces turning around the way we do business

The integral structure of of governement and important private sectors and their cooperation is very important

Harnessing the power of ICTs is a government and behavioural issue – rather than a technological issue

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Sharing on Government Transformation by IDA International

Topic: Singapore’s ICT Journey – The Past 30 years and the Next 5 years.

Speaker: Mr. YEONG Wee Tan, Deputy Director

ICT sector in Singapore

• 40 bn US$
• 140 000 IT professionals

Six national ICT plans

• Computerisation
• Communication
• Connectivity
• Convergence
• Connectedness
• Creation

It’s necessary to start a dialog on learned lessons – between Singapore and the other nations

A lot of working with foreign agencies

IDA International – Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

• partnering with other governments, sharing lessons of Singapore and advising them
• not a vendor
• living their lessons
• helping to integrate ICTs

Sharing lessons on different levels

• Infrastructure
• Human capacity – The countries need to have sustainable human capital to carry on with their policies
• Industry and Government
• Governance – which legal framework is necessary
• Outcomes – What are the aims?

Within 15 minutes you can register a Singaporian company around the world

GrBiz – Government to Business open platform

We want to get people used to make everything “e”

• There are 200 government services available on a handheld in Singapore
• Also as a tourist you get all these services available
• A lot of learning devices for schools – “Future schools in Singapore” – to be on the forefront of development
• Also health care projects

Government must evolve to be an open ecosystem

Together with agencies like the World Bank we can teach also other countries how to integrate ICTs in their services and transform their operations

eTransformation can create a better world through ICT

Q & A:

Question about public trust – everything is digital now, do people trust in the system?

• Everybody has one number – took quite a while to harmonize that
• In the beginning of the journey there were problems, but in the mean time people have accepted it
• There is a lot of public consultation

Infrastructure is important but education too – how to talk to ministries trying to prioritize?

Cross agency information sharing?

• There always political trouble  – but the important point is communicate, communicate, communicate the overall goal to everbody
• It’s important to bring the stakeholders together and convince them

What motivates Singapore for international coperation? Typical cooperation between the agency and another country?

• One strategic plan in the Singapore ICT plan is internationalization
• It’s also an export industry, not everything for free – but not a typical consultor, we are there to help people get on the IT journey
• It’s important for us to give back to the world
• We act like a trusted adviser to the government

Do you have an administrative reform plans for the country and how is it linked to the ICT plan?

• Definitely, everything is balanced between administrative reforms, governments processes, … to have everybody on the same page, it’s still ongoing

Comments:

It’s very encouraging to see this international exchange, Singapore is currently working on a P2P portal for government transformation

Sometimes you need to break established ways of work and act outside the framework

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Sharing on Government Transformation by novaCITYNETS Pte Ltd

Topic: e-Transformation to a First World City

Speaker: Ms. Joyce WONG, EVP

Singapore in the 1960 had big problems – a developing country

• GDP per capita: 427$

Several measures to overcome the situation

• Public housing
• Attracting foreign investment – to create jobs

Making Singapore a good place for investment

• Infrastructure improvement – water, electricity, roads, …
• Well thought our master plan
• Constant reform
• Concept plan = blueprint
• Master plan = vision
• Construction = concrete measures
• Twenty years plan

A lot of construction activities

Many issues faced when dealing with construction permits from different agencies

Introduction of COREnet

• streamline and reengineer the processes in the construction industry
• e-submission system launched in 2001
• business re-engineering, project design, training, industry promotion, …
• Interface for businesses to interact with the government
• Variety of agencies are hidden behind the online portal – single point of access
• big success story, companies make use of it, big increase in efficiency

In 2009

• 16 participating agencies
• 700 application forms (2001) to 231
• 30% improvement in turnaround time

Information on eTransformation in Sri Lanka

• All building blocks for a strong eGovernment solution were not in place – when NCS came to rescue
• Trying to replicate the experience of Singapore – but adapt it to the situation in Sri Lanka

Yesterday, 16 September, the workshop Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation: From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation, initiated by the eDevelopment Thematic Group (eTG) of the World Bank took place.

It was already the 7th workshop we covered on our blog, Twitter and social media since we started our partnership with eTG, and the topic was especially interesting for us – considering the unique role of mobile phones in developing countries nowadays.

The workshop was split in six parts, each having as leitmotif a certain sector where mobile services are used.

• Part 1 focused on an Overview of Mobile Innovations Space and Enabling Environment
• Part 2 focused on Mobile Innovations in Financial Services
• Part 3 focused on Mobile Innovations in Health
• Part 4 focused on Mobile Innovations in Education
• Part 5 focused on Mobile Applications in Agriculture and Rural Development
• Part 6 focused on Mobile Innovations in Governance

There are some photos which Oleg Petrov took during the event on the ICT4D.at Flickr account.

The speakers came from various sectors – the World Bank, private and public sector, the academia and practicioners in the field.

Many of them claimed what I also already heard in several other conferences – the technology is there, now we have to focus on applications and business models. Although several successful projects were presented, there were general complaints that often such projects don’t bypass the “pilot” stage and don’t achieve sustainability. The topic of scaling projects to reach more audience and higher impact was also mentioned several times. More evaluation on impact and sharing information on failures of projects was identified as two ways to overcome this problem. Also the concept of private-public partnerships and searching strong, committed partners for implementing mobile solutions was put forward once more.

More detailed information can be found in the blog posts linked above and on Twitter. Under the hashtag #mobile09 the lively online discussion surrounding the event can be followed – several contributors gave this event quite a drive. The comments there had a more critical viewpoint on mobile phones as the big solution for all problems.

What was interesting for me personally was that obviously there is no real large scale project out there which is profitable so far. M-Pesa is the only one which scratches the border but also has trouble creating revenue. Impressive non-profit examples where projects which used mobile phones for delivering services to the poor and as enhancements in education.

So all in all the event gave a feeling that there is potential for more to come in the mobile sector and several great examples were given – but the “killer application” is obviously still to come, or maybe there’s even no need for it, because it’s so easy to set up an own, localized application.

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation – From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation“ on 16 September in Washington DC.

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Session 6: Mobile Innovations in Governance

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Introduction: Alfredo Gonzalez, WBI

Mobile technology has created at elections in various countries to raise voice and awareness

Fighting corruption is a big issue for ICTs

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Mobile Phones for Good Governance – Scaling Up Issues

Ed Campos

Philippines is the SMS capital of the world – the reason is that technology came and broke the landline monopoly and everything changed

Mobile phones give the possibility to tap the voices of people you probably wouldn’t have heard

Problem with governance is the service delivery – especially in the regions locally

• mobile telephony and ICTs can help a lot here
• example in the Philippines where mobile phones were used for ensuring transparency in the education system

Mobile technology is a mechanism to bridge the demand-supply side very fast

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Johan Hellstrom, ICT Specialist Stockholm University

East Africa as cast study

What is good governance?

• impossible to define – depends on the context
• relationships between three actors: state, market and civil society
• communication between these actors is really the key point

Why mobile phones?

• huge potentials
• penetration rates, access, reach
• easy to use, interaction
• costs, efficiency
• no other option?

M-governance?

• not mGovernment, it’s good governance with mobile technology
• interaction, reaction, action
• bottom up participation
• empowerment

East Africa: mostly pilots – many examples

• Much usage which was not planned
• Crowdsourcing

Recent example:

• big incident
• hard to get information – except on Twitter
• crowdsourcing information with the help of Ushahidi

Questions:

• why are there so many pilots and yet so few that have been scaled-up?
• why do many projects start from scratch instead of building on existing solutions?
• why are there many subscribers but yet so few users of existing applications?

Challenges:

• infrastructure
• affordability – who pays for good governance services?
• content – who is creating the content?
• surrounding supporting system
• enabling environment
• documentation – on the pilots, success, failure, more collaboration

East Africa:

• markets deregulated but operators still too powerful

Success factors for scaling:

• design phase: end-user driven, use existing patterns
• implementation phase: more research on business models, proper marketing to build a critical mass

Conslusion:

• design for scale
• don’t be afraid of failures, don’t force success – but document
• service delivery instead of projects approach
• but: scale is not success, usage is not impact

Q & A:

best practices to design for scale?

• designing by knowing that there is something beyond the pilot and what you want to achieve

governments are also afraid of the powers of new technologies

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Boris Weber, WBI

Using Frontline SMSat WBI

• east and fast to use
• great communication tool
• but relying on one network admin, maybe this can change in the future

Citizen feedback to service providers:

• Long route – involving governments representatives and a lot of bureaucracy
• Short route – citizens can give direct feedback

Why are we still doing citizen report cards same as 30 years ago?

• automated process could make process quicker
• improve performance
• give providers the possibility to focus on evaluation and feedback

Idea – having feedback on a public service

• various channels
• government civil society work with data

Live sample of feedback mechanism / rating via SMS

Mobile phone – ICT tool with the lowest gender gap, reaches also out to illiterates, …

• everybody can give feedback

Next step: participatory budgeting

• priority areas to spend money one
• specific projects make it too complex – but still citizens can be kept informed
• increasing number of participation

Participating citizens in the decision process has the potential to change a lot

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Katrin Verclas, Co-Founder and Editor, MobileActive.Org download presentation

mLearning is where mHealth was 3 years ago and mHealth is where mFinance was 3 years ago – so what is mGovernance?

there’s very little happening, save a few areas e.g. elections

mobile phone is the most ubiquotious compared to ant other media

• but a lot of hype is happening in this field
• danger of people being disappointed
• one has to be careful about what mobile technology can deliver and what it can not

Mobilactive.org:

• bringing people together using mobiles for social change
• repository of projects

Use of mobiles interesting in this session

• accountability & transparency
• media reporting
• organizing / advocacy

Report on mobile phones in citizen media

• citizen media bringing minor but significant changes

Elections:

• one of the few areas where ICT are largely used
• monitoring as an established procedure, mobiles as enhancing it
• example: Ghana 2008 – went very well

Key issues:

• Incredibly promising and exciting
• Commercial, competitive, very fluid field
• Privacy and security
• Fragmented platforms
• Many pilots, no scale
• Impact unclear. Much trial and error
• Focus on apps but not on an enabling environment
• Lack of open platforms and applications
• Significant capacity issues (NGOs and Gov)
• Lack of capable intermediaries
• Little knowledge of what works in what setting
• Data alone may be largely useless unless it provides the right information delivered through the right channel in the right form at the right time.

A framework

• Additive versus transformative
• Contextual and user-focused
• Sustainable (unsolved)
• Driven by demand – Build it and they will come does usually not work
• Localized but shareable
• Built on open standards?
• Built on existing knowledge

Needed:

• Targeted (and outsourced) R&D
• ICT innovation marketplaces
• Venture funds and public private partnerships
• IT, mobile, data, information visualization, etc
• User adoption studies and contextual research
• Nokia and Microsoft
• Better topographies (and case studies)

Notes from the World Bank eDevelopment Thematic Group workshop on “Mobile Innovations for Social and Economic Transformation – From Pilots to Scaled-up Implementation“ on 16 September in Washington DC.

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Session 5: Mobile Applications in Agriculture and Rural Development

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Introduction: Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, WB

The dilemma bread vs. mobile phones was never a real dilemma – mobile phones help us to make better, cheaper, … bread

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Framing the Topic and Learning from Experience
Kerry McNamara, Consultant, ARD

The question is different from sector to sector

What we’re talking about are wireless – what are the opportunities for expanding wireless coverage

Impact of mobiles – letter a = access

• more people have access to a mobile signal than ever
• that’s changing our whole work

affordability, appliance – SMS as the most simple application

Changes don’t happen because of the mobile device but because of the ecosystem the device creates

Not what we can do – but what we should do

We tend to focus on the applications

• making agricultural markets more efficient
• although evidence may not be solid

We want people to have access – but we should think beyond the device & beyond the hand of the individual

The best interventions begin with a definition of the problem and clear design principles

• the problem is not the technology
• ICT is only the tool – we have to look how ICTs can help

We should talk about mobility, not about devices

• Combination of mobility, distance and time is interesting
• we shouldn’t be too fixated on platforms

How is information broadly understood? How can it be transformative?

We need to think about policies and regulations

Often in the last 10 years fascination with gadgets has cost us good development practice

What is to be replicated when trying to replicate a project? How much does the local context matter?

In the ICT4D community we tended to engineers solutions – we have to focus more on enabling the environment for innovation

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David Edelstein, Director of ICT Innovation, Grameen Foundation

Microfinance has been around 1000 years, but technology can make it a lot more efficient

Grameen foundation – how can the mobile phone be used to improve the people’s lives?

• different domains – also cross-domain
• services that can be scaled and are sustainable

Using phones to collect information – and also disseminate information

Providing services over mobile phones

• several criteria how the foundation identifies initiatives
• specific project implementation process – rapid prototyping

Crucial for success – having the right partners with high level engagement

Service of the Grameen foundation in Uganda:

• weather services
• agriculture information
• marketplace for farmers

Live demo of the Google SMS search

Community Knowledge Worker Initiative

Conclusions:

• Understanding needs – consult the user early and often
• Be creative
• Fail fast
• Usability – trusted intermediary
• Right partners

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Aparjita Goyal, Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

Example project E-Choupal – service to cut out intermediaries and buy directly from soy farmers – as a business strategy for a private company

• Internet kiosks where the local prices are posted on a website
• Ware houses = hubs established in town – farmers going there to sell directly to the private company
• Improvement of the situation of farmers – higher average revenue for the farmers
• Farmers with good quality sell to the private company – downward pressure on the price

Findings

• increase of soy price of 2-3%
• the further away the kiosks are from the market, the lower the impact
• farmers are responding to increased price

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ICT in Agriculture Sourcebook
Kerry McNamara

Skipping this point due to lack of time – website

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Q & A

Mobility is an enabler – timeliness in agriculture; the killer apps are in this sector

Bundling information – transaction – eGovernment services can be powerful but are all served on different platforms