Crossposted from crisscrossed.net

Thanks to Tom L. and Peter Ballantayne for their very interesting remarks on my post “an overview of blogging for development.” Peter argued that there are a lot different blogs in development aid or international cooperation out there and “must be loads more, just not very visible.” And Tom had a great point:

What’s probably as important as noting the existence of the blogs themselves is tracking the development of the aid-development blogosphere, examining the connections (strength, regularity, theme) between blogs and seeing if there are purposive and deliberate communities building out there. Not many groups are actually taking aggregation a step further and building connections and seeking to create value to the profession from the new-found willingness to share online.

I agree with Peter that there is probably much more of it out there, but I criticize that in most cases it is not linked and therefore has no networks. And as Tom rightly points out, there is little knowledge sharing and discourse between different bloggers, different organizations. I give you three examples how different the approaches are and what is behind them. I analyzed all three blogs with technorati.com and aiderss.com to find out about their network and discussions.

Blog World Hunger
This blog is from the International Food Policy Research Institute. They also presented their web2.0 approach on the web2fordev conference. They have been experimenting with blogs internally for knowledge sharing for already some years. This internal blogging seemed to me quite vibrant since it involves a lot of staff. However, when you look at the external blog, you have a complete contrast. Six posts and seven comments in 2007. I wonder why they even use a blog and not a normal website. In Technorati, it has 9 blog reactions in 2007 (other blogs linking to it), and in del.icio.us it has been bookmarked only one time (from me!).
Certainly not a blog to network nor discuss the issue of world hunger with a broader community. For example it does not link to any other blog. It seems to be a place to just drop various documents and articles.

The following two blogs are very different in which one is grassroot driven and the other from the World Bank.

William Kamkwamba’s Malawi Windmill Blog
This is a blog about William Kamkwamba, the 19-year-old self-taught engineer who built a windmill power system for his family’s home in Malawi. His story was broadcasted at the TEDGlobal 2007 in Tanzania. (Check out all the other great presentations). His blog, which started back in June, got over 222 blog reactions according to Technorati. It has been commented 52 times and it has been bookmarked 48 times in del.icio.us. No doubt that that blog is a great storyteller and invites to read and interact. It also clearly is meant to support William in his eduction. Furthermore, it has been nicely embedded into the wider blogosphere and the result is remarkable. It has big attention.

End poverty in South Asia
This is a blog run by the Shanta Devarajan, the Chief Economist of the South Asia Region at the World Bank. His statement “End poverty in one generation. It can be done in one generation” makes the goal clear. It is quite an offensive approach for an organization such as the world bank in my opinion. This has triggered already 49 comments two 12 posts since it started in September, and it has aroused over 20 blog reactions so far. Similar to William’s blog and in contrast to the world hunger blog, it gives a personal perspective, and evokes feedback. However, I am curious to see how an organization such as the world bank will keep such an open discourse and how it can contribute:

This is why I am starting this blog. To contribute to the debate (sometimes, to start one) with ideas, analysis and evidence so that South Asians—and people who care about South Asia—can have a dialogue on these critically important issues, so that together we can end poverty in South Asia. (Shanta Devarajan)

In conclusion, I think blogs are used in more and more different ways. However, blogs are often not part of networks nor refer to each other. The communication is a one way street or the discourse is not happening in a social network of blogs. And interestingly there is still a wide gap between the many piles of documents for development themes and the few pioneers tempting to have a two way conversation about development.

As part of a research conducted by GINKS (www.ginks.org) in Ghana, a web-based tool (Ekumfi Atakwaa Information Kiosk) was developed to stream videos on Agricultural practices online for women farmers in a small community in the Central Region of Ghana called Ekumfi Atakwaa. These women have very little or no formal education, and are mostly peasant farmers. As part of the research project, an information center was set up at the village. This center has about 10 networked computers with an installed VSAT for internet connection. The software is currently streaming the video on the LAN. It would have been interesting having it on the internet for it to benefit more people but the general connectivity issue………….. We tried it in the initial stages but it took almost forever to upload the videos unto the server (These were very big video files). Althouth we installed a VSAT for the center and we are paying for a 128 kbps (shared) bandwidth, the speeds are just too bad. (General Service Conditions by ISPs in the developing world).

It will be interesting to use Web 2.0 tools to capture these videos for a wider dissemination. Let me confess that we have not tried that yet. My concern however is still the problem of the usefulness of online content for the rural folk. Although we have trained these women to use the tool themselves, and are using it effectively, they are most impatient with the loading time (20 - 30 sec). They prefer to play the videos on a DVD player because that one plays almost instantly. I wonder if they will be patient enough to wait for the long download times associated with links in out part of the world. One sometimes have to click the refresh button a number of times to get a full download.

As I said earlier, I have had just a little experience with the Web 2.0 tools, but I am aware of its power. What I will like to people to devote some efforts to, in its development is the issue of low bandwidths in developing countries. There are arguements that the target is for Web 2.0 is not “a direct access of the poor to the new technology“. I agree with the assertion that it should be seen as a framework of the service landscape in rural areas in general. My concern once again is that these service providers and informediaries, like myself, who will access these tools for the benefit of the rural poor themselves have to contend with the low bandwidths. It is therefore my opinion that these tools are developed such that they are accessible to us, “The World’s Poor”, it terms of its use of resources like bandwidth and computer resources. My understanding of the world’s poor is not the uneducated, simple, rural people but people like us who work as intermediaries, and informadiaries, trying to make life a little confortable for our unfortunate brothers and sisters “down there“. I believe sincerely that where all have failed, ICT has the capacity to save them.

Cheers
Eddie

This has been some of the main questions on the minds of many internet users. The issues of whether Web 2.0 is a new development or a reparkaged set of already existing tools is not relevant to many people in the catagory if “the world’s poor”. To these people, the most important thing is whether these tools can realy help alleviate their poverty. Many of these people are themselves not interested in the tools, but how these tools can be used to help them out of their poverty. From my own point of view, working with the rural poor and exploring how ICT could be used to reduce their poverty, I think we should be exploring the possibilities of using these tools to effectively raise the livelihoods of the poor farmers and traders who are in the majority. Issues of poor connectivity in major towns and communities in developing countries bring up a serious challenge to the promoters of any new technological advancement in the world which in most cases are targeted at reducing poverty. Can we look again at the issue of connectivity, especially in areas where dial-up is even a problem. How can these people effectively use the wonderful features that Web 2.0 offers?

Food for thought