Comparison Shopping in Uganda’s Dual Economy...A Safari Tale

Last September I was in a pub having a pint with my new classmates at Trinity. As everyone talked about their development experience Andres brought up the issue of first world prices in third world countries. Andres is from Argentina but has visited many parts of the world, working for small NGOs running aid and development projects. For a time he lived in an African country (I can’t remember which one) and learned from that experience about dual economies. 

Dual economies are when there are two prices paid, a higher price by one group and a lower one by another, for equivalent goods...it happens everywhere to some degree, but in developing countries it can be quite pronounced. An example of this would be a western-style apartment in the center of Kampala could rent for more than $3,000 per month but the same apartment a bit farther from the International NGOs and embassies would rent for less than $500. 

Thanks to the good advice of my supervisor here in Kampala and the wonders of Internet search engines, I’ve managed to pay mostly the local lower rate for things here. The guesthouse where I’m staying this summer costs just $20 per night. It’s a decent enough place – popular with students, backpackers and locals. I shop in the local markets and take the local version of public transportation (taxis) to get around. The cost of my food and transportation rarely exceeds $25 per week. 

My one challenge has been finding a safari. Before I leave Uganda I am determined to visit one of the national parks - they are rumoured to be some of the most beautiful in the world. But safaris cost an absolute fortune (about $300 per day) unless you can find five other friends to join you. This is well above my budget and so I’ve been searching around for a more affordable option.

Enter Ronald...Ronald is a driver here in Kampala recommended to me by the guesthouse. Take away the beret and he looks almost exactly like Rerun from the 1970s sitcom, What’s Happening. 

Ronald gave me a lift back from the craft market last Saturday, and in doing so, passed my version of a driver test - he didn’t hit anything, he didn’t run out of gas, and he didn’t take advantage of my non-existent bargaining skills and charge me too much. So as we made our way back through the chaos of Kampala traffic I asked him how much it would cost to take me to one of the national parks. He broke it down for me this way.

       “Well madam, there are several costs which we must consider as part of this discussion. I will now explain them to you. “

        “Most companies will charge you for a driver, a car, and the fuel to travel back and forth from the park. The car and the driver will be minimal charges to you, but be warned....the majority of the cost that you will pay will be the what? Petrol...yes that’s correct.”

        “Normally I will charge 180,000 Ugandan shillings per day for the car and the driver, but for you madam I will only charge 150,000. I will give to you a large car, so that you can rest comfortably in the back seat during the journey, and I will send to you my best driver so that you will be safe and secure.”

        “It will cost approximately 400,000 Ugandan shillings for the fuel, and you must be careful not to purchase too much or too little because you do not wish to overpay, but neither do you also wish to run out of fuel on the road. This would be very dangerous.”

At this point I realized that the budget option of travelling to a national park was going to entail some level of personal accountability on my part. Check.

       “You will wish to take one day to drive to the park. You will arrive during the evening where you can drive around, see the animals, and then have dinner and relax from your journey.”

       “The next day you will wish to drive around the park again early in the morning while the lions are returning from their hunting, then have lunch, and after perhaps a walk around. You will finally depart for Kampala in the evening, arriving very late.”

This was a red flag...I’ve heard never to drive on the roads at night here - if the potholes don’t get you, the roadblocks will. 

I explained to Ronald that I would probably spend a full day at the park, departing on the third morning, and he acknowledged my wisdom, adding another 150,000 shillings to the tally. While he neglected to mention the additional costs of the $35 park entrance fee and $70 per night hotel (for me...not sure where the driver stays), it’s still just about $200 per day. Much less than a safari.

So that’s a better option, but there is yet a cheaper one that was recommended to me by my friends at the guesthouse. Red Chili here in Kampala runs safaris for backpackers. Assuming I can join an existing group, it will cost me only $350 for four days....well within my price range. So I’ve sent off an enquiry form and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll have a tour. 

If not, sometime in August Ronald and I are going on safari. 

ICT4Dev

Here in Uganda friendships form quickly within the expat community, fed by a common need for kinship in a foreign place. Over the previous month my friends at the guest house and I have shopped together, visited tourist sites together, but I think what I may miss the most when I return are the conversations we've had. Particularly those around my favorite topic – technology.

Lars and Asreen are two of my friends from the guest house. They are students at Linneaus University in Sweden, and for the past month they’ve been wrapping up an ICT research project that began more than a year ago. On Thursday they presented their project findings as part of a series of ICT4Dev (ICT for Development) projects hosted by a consortium of Ugandan NGOs that included: Transparency International, Women’s Uganda Network (WOUGNET), Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), and Toro Development. Asreen invited me to see first-hand the incredible work going on in Uganda using ICT – here are project summaries of the presentations from that day.

Transparency International (TI) Uganda (ICT for Health Services Delivery)

This project was implemented within six sub counties across the Oyam and Lira districts after nearly five years of insurgency decimated Northern Uganda’s social services infrastructure. The intent of the project was to increase service transparency and accountability. One of the first project steps was to establish a toll free number that community members could call to report issues with their health centers. Calls started coming in reporting high rates of staff absenteeism, understaffing, worker attrition, poor hygiene, drug stock issues, and ghost workers on the payroll.

Once the initial data was received, the project team summarized it and began broadcasting the findings using local radio stations. They used these programs as well to discuss healthcare service improvement, engaging the entire community in a dialog on their right to healthcare and the role of the government in providing it. The groundswell of community support was then used to bring stakeholders into discussions that led to service improvements. Despite challenges of self-censorship, local call center power outages, and a low rate of ICT accessibility by women, the project showed positive results. Health center absenteeism was reduced by 30 percent and the hygiene issues that had been raised were corrected.

Toro Dev (Converging ICT Tools to Promote Public Accountability for Service Delivery)
This project in the Toro district of Uganda began in July of last year and continues through July of next year. The intent is to bring community members and local officials together in a more collaborative partnership. Previously, the general public didn’t really understand the roles of local political leaders, and the leaders weren't cooperatively supporting grassroots citizen engagement initiatives because they didn’t have the resources to implement requested improvements.

Similar to the Transparency International project, this project used local radio as well, but instead of using it purely as a means of communicating the findings from the community, it was instead used as a convergence point for the entire process. Local radio broadcasters were trained on Internet research and advocacy journalism, and they then used their training to follow a new program format that increased dialog around important community issues. The project also used mobile phones, Facebook and other social media to gather information and questions for the local politicians and service providers who would be invited to participate in discussions on air. The live and interactive radio programs presented both sides of the debate, and then after the broadcast, discussion continued online in social networks.

The project has only been in effect for a year, but it has already resulted in several infrastructure improvements including a gravity flow scheme and road repairs. This project faces several of the same challenges as the TI project, including access to electricity and self censorship by the general population. The greatest challenge, though, is the rapid growth of local radio stations which is having a dilutive effect on listenership.

WOUGNET Service Monitoring Project (Lars and Asreen’s Project)

Similar to the projects above, WOUGNET’s service monitoring project was established as a means of increasing accountability and transparency between the government and civil society through grassroots engagement in public service monitoring. The technologies were similar as well to the previously mentioned projects in that they included a combination of mature technologies (radio and mobile phone) and emerging technologies (social networks). But WOUGNET’s project used a “beep call” system (when a call is placed it connects for an instant to register a call back request). The advantage of this system is that because the cost is born entirely by the return call from the call center, the cost to the person reporting the issue is practically toll free.

The service monitoring project uncovered worker absenteeism and mismanagement of public resources. It also uncovered something very unique, an informal economy of payments made by some public sector workers to other staff who had not received their salaries from the government. The Ugandan government has been accused on several occasions of not paying or being slow to pay its workers. That lack of payment is one of the fundamental reasons cited in many of the service delivery failures in the public sector. 

In highlighting this and other issues, the project increased civic awareness. It also increased community involvement in monitoring of public services, and the Voluntary Social Accountability Committees (VSAC) in charge of monitoring services noted improved ICT skills. Moreover the community received a greater voice in sub county development plans and more equal distribution of benefit from government programs like NAAD and NUSAF. The end result was an improvement in service delivery in the communities in which the project was implemented.

ICT Capacity Building...CIPESA and Ric-Net

CIPESA has supported many ICT projects including the iParticipate election monitoring project which ended in 2013. They also have provided PCs, Internet access, training and mentorship to the e-society center in Kasese, the Northern Uganda Media Club and the Busoga Rural Open Source Development Initiative.

Ric-Net also provided support for the e-society center as part of its capacity building efforts for local communities. In addition to a social service accountability program (similar to those described above) the organization also helps local communities in Uganda build websites and e-libraries which provide on-line access to community information that previously were available solely by visiting local government offices in person. Here is an example of one of the e-libraries: Kalangala.

Final Thoughts...

What struck me the most about these projects is that they all effectively integrated technology into existing manual systems, and in doing so, increased incident reporting rates within the communities that the projects served. In other words, the use of technology improved citizen engagement, primarily by increasing information transparency and accelerating communication flows.

The question, though, that kept coming up in each of the presentations was the issue of sustainment. i.e. how to continue accountability efforts within the communities after project financial supports were removed. Change is a very difficult thing to sustain over time – just ask anyone who made a New Year’s resolution back in January – and when there are powerful forces working against change like corruption and entitlement, then it’s even more difficult.

So corruption impedes sustained positive change, but sustained positive change is what fights corruption. In software development that would be described as an infinite loop...you do not want an infinite loop in your program – it crashes the system.

I don’t have any solutions to this dilemma, but the trend in Ugandan Civil Society Organizations is to integrate technology within the scope of capacity building. This is why CIPESA and Ric-Net are establishing community centers that provide technology access and training.

I’ve talked with many people here who say that the only way forward is through technology. It’s not a question of if, but rather of how. Technology is a powerful communication tool that has the potential to give voice to 7 billion hearts and minds across the globe. It is the great equalizer and as such, one of the purest forms of democracy. Perhaps these projects are just chipping away at the edges of social inclusion, but assuming the momentum continues, they have the potential to become part of a much greater transformation.

Safe and Secure

I'm sitting in my office at CDRN looking at the bars that crisscross the window, wondering what I would do if there was a fire. Like many businesses in Kampala (and I hear in other African cities as well) CDRN is one of a series of buildings contained within a walled compound. Large metal gates are controlled by our round-the-clock security staff. No one gets in or out without being noticed - it's very safe and secure...that is until there's a fire. Then I'll be human barbeque with grill marks thanks to these bars. Nothing in life is safe.

This is the kind of random thought that enters my head while I recover from the food poisoning I contracted over the weekend. Since arriving in Uganda I have mostly followed the rules - eaten only cooked food, drank and brushed my teeth with only bottled water, but there's one rule I broke - fresh fruit. I love the fruit here and eat it every single day. Could it have poisoned me? I don't really know...it could have been anything I suppose.

Things like this happen that shake the illusion of control I believe I have over my life. And when they do my first instinct is to stop doing whatever I did that may have created the threat. But when I do I deny myself something as well - a chance to overcome the fear that everyone has to face as part of life. The trick I suppose is knowing the right balance and my own capability to manage risky situations.

For example - I keep getting grabbed.

In fairness I do stick out a bit here...I'm almost 6 feet tall with light eyes and blonde hair. There aren't too many women wandering around Kampala that have these same characteristics and it's a bit like being a B list celebrity with a questionable reputation...Lindsay Lohan comes to mind. Everyone notices you - most people only stare - some are friendly - others are not.

The first Saturday after I arrived I decided to walk to a meeting with my research supervisor rather than take a taxi. It was only about 30 minutes to the city center and since I had seen many people walking around I thought I could as well. But as I continued down the streets of Kampala I quickly realized that I was attracting attention. 

Some greeted me with a friendly "hello!" Most just watched me walk by. Boda taxis kept pulling up in front of me and blocking my path, asking if I needed a lift. Men sprawled out in the grass at the side of the road called out, asking me to come over and meet them. It was disconcerting...I've lived my life so far in relative anonymity.

As I approached a crowded area, I felt a jab at my back. I spun around and a wide eyed boy no older than 15 years was backing away from me - he'd just made a grab for my bag but missed...his glancing blow went across my side instead. I'd never had anything like this happen before and it made me afraid for a while.

For the next several weeks I didn't venture beyond the short walk from my guesthouse to work unless I was with other people. Being part of a group had a cloaking effect, and as time went on and nothing bad happened I started to think maybe I was being paranoid. And even if I wasn't I was annoyed that I had allowed fear to make me a hermit.

So last weekend I ventured a short solo walk to the grocery store to stock up on water and snacks. A man greeted me as I walked down the hill and a group of teenage boys waved their arms at me with big grins on their faces but it didn't feel threatening...I didn't mind. Coming out of the grocery store, though, a man in a dusty ancient leather jacket grabbed my arm and commanded me to follow him. Angry this time instead of intimidated I pulled away from him and kept walking. I had begun to learn to adapt - to manage the risk in this environment.

If this all seems a bit cautious to you, I wonder if I am being too careful as well. When I was in my 20s I embraced risk - it was an adventure. And it's not to say that travelling half-way around the world isn't a risk....it is. But I hear the stories of my new friends Asreen and Lars who went bungee jumping and white water rafting last weekend in Jinja and I wonder...am I playing it too safe?

Everyone has to decide for themselves how much risk they will welcome into their lives, and accept that sometimes things will happen that are completely out of their control as well. Sometimes those things are wonderful new experiences that open your eyes to the world as though for the first time. Other times those experiences are filled with pain and regret. But the thing is there's no way to know beforehand how they will turn out and so there has to be a bit of faith that goes along with the acceptance that much of life is beyond anyone's control.

So peering into the dark void of uncertainty I have made a decision. I will eat the fruit. I will walk alone through Kampala carrying nothing that I would regret if it were stolen and waving like Miss America in the Thanksgiving Day parade as people stop and stare at me. I will forget about the fires, malaria-poisoned mosquitoes, rabid gorillas, and any other random but highly unlikely threats that could occur during my stay in Uganda. But I probably won't bungee jump, sky dive, white water raft or participate in any other adrenaline sports because while they look like a lot of fun, the thrills I seek are less physical and more existential these days. These are the thrills that I will leave a door open for to invite into my life.

Tinkering With An E-Waste Strategy

Every day between 68,500 and 137,000 tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) are generated across the globe. It is the fastest growing waste stream in the world. Assuming Wikipedia is right on its tonnage weights for shipping containers, that's enough to fill 2,000 40 foot containers per day. The reason I reference shipping containers is because the majority of e-waste is exported out of country for processing, quite often to Africa.

E-waste is hazardous and so there are international laws the govern the e-waste trade (the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions primarily). There are also regional laws and restrictions for the disposition of e-waste like the WEEE Directive for the UK and the EU.  These laws are meant to ensure that e-waste is disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner and to give countries the right to refuse shipments if they lack that capability. But there are two problems...market-based incentives and illegal export.

The market for gold, silver, scrap metal and sometimes plastic is strong enough that it makes processing e-waste a profitable business, particularly in places where labor is cheap. These countries generally do not have a mechanized waste collection and management infrastructure in place and so they rely on informal labor markets (scavenging) and environmentally toxic processing techniques. These techniques can reclaim most of the scrap metal, plastic, and glass, but very little if any of the highly valuable precious metals and rare earth minerals that most electronics contain.

Some African countries, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of e-waste arriving in their ports, have begun to crack down on illegal shipments. Other countries, like Uganda, have implemented import bans. The problem with import bans (at least with Uganda's) is that it is not selective. It bans the import of all used electronics into the country. The import ban has resulted in a wider "digital divide" between the wealthy who can afford new electronics and the poor who cannot. It has also resulted in an increase in the supply of cheap but highly unreliable new electronics, and has effectively shut down social enterprises, like Camara, who rely on a used computer model, to operate within the country.

This was one of the first discussion topics that came up when I began to work with Camara on an end-of-life disposition strategy for their computers here in Uganda and the other countries that they operate in. The other discussion topic was the sheer lack of responsible e-waste processing options. Here in Uganda that's certainly the case. It's also the case in Zambia, Lesotho, Jamaica, and Haiti, and while options do exist in Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia, they are very new and not yet governed by policy. Because of this it's difficult to determine whether they are really as responsible as they claim to be.

Studies have shown that when there are no options for processing e-waste, it tends to accumulate. So imagine the situation here in Uganda and in many other countries where there is literally a ticking time bomb of hazardous waste building up in households and businesses across the country. It's not good. And it doesn't have to be this way.

Kenya is a good example of a country working toward a sustainable e-waste processing system, having implemented both e-waste policies and responsible recycling options. The other countries mentioned above that have implemented responsible recycling are quickly following with e-waste policies as well. It may be a while though before these countries reach Irish standards. In Ireland if you want to recycle electronics you can just take them to one of the regularly scheduled "drop off" events.

E-Waste Strategy Development On A Refurbished Computer

Or if you want to dispose of a computer, you can choose an option even more responsible than recycling by dropping it off at one of Camara's collection sites. Camara gives new life to old computers by refurbishing them, loading educational software on them, and then shipping them to service hubs for distribution to schools. The maintenance agreement on the computers provides teacher training and hardware maintenance for the refurbished PCs. At the next end-of-life (within three to five years) Camara collects and recycles the computers. And herein lies the challenge that I've been tasked with - finding a responsible computer disposal solution in countries where, at least today, no solution currently exists.

It's a challenge that must be solved because at its core Camara is an environmentally responsible social enterprise. They just recently completed ISO 14001 accreditation which formalized many of the good environmental practices they already had in place. These practices are part of an organizational ethos that does not allow computers to be dumped and burned at the end of their useful lives. Nor does it allow computers to be "recycled" using acid baths and open fires that poison the air and water sources of entire communities. These toxic practices are in place today in many African countries.

So for the past two months I've been working with the experts at Camara to find a way to responsibly dispose of every computer they reclaim. And while difficult, so far it hasn't been an impossible task thanks to the support I've received from the organization. They recognize the challenge and are committed to finding a sustainable solution. 

The one problem has been that there are fery few recycling options for CRT monitors anywhere in the world. Camara is eliminating CRT use in their operations, but there are several thousand that have already been sent out that will eventually need to be disposed of. To ensure these monitors are properly recycled we're exploring the idea of consolidating and exporting them to responsible recyclers in South Africa for the African countries, and to the US for the Caribbean countries. I'm still investigating the export restrictions and costs though...if anyone reading this has more information or a better solution, please post a comment.

Finally, this whole situation raises a thought provoking question. How do you extend the total life of a computer even beyond what Camara has already done? The best solution of all is an infinite lifecycle. And thinking this way creates some interesting options. There is a "tinkering society" emerging in many countries where obsolete equipment is reinvented as completely new technology. Vinay Venkatraman describes this in his recent TedTalk. Is it possible for Camara to utilize this to further extend the life of their computers? It's certainly an idea worth exploring.

In a month or so I will wrap this project up, and I have to say I've learned a lot. Several years ago I worked as part of a team to develop a similar strategy for my previous employer and found it to be a frustrating task because of the size and complexity of the US operation. Now I think the previous task was relatively simple compared to what Camara faces. But hidden quietly away in this challenge is an incredible opportunity for innovation. Wouldn't it be amazing if Camara was able to not just educate hundreds of thousands of children around the world, but in doing so to also fundamentally redefine the technology lifecycle? 

Food Issues

This morning I woke up a little later than usual which meant that instead of applying make-up in the predawn half-light I had the advantage of full sun. As I examined my face, looking for smudges and smears from the heavy foundation that I use to cover skin imperfections I realized something....my skin was perfectly clear for the first time in years. No rash on my chin, no pimples on my forehead, no redness around my nose - it was all gone. 

I'm guessing this is due to the changes in my my diet over the last three weeks. Instead of oatmeal for breakfast, yogurt and fruit for lunch. and dinner that often includes soy protein, pasta and vegetables, I'm eating very little protein, no dairy, and a lot of vegetables. I'm not eating meat but that's normal because I'm a vegetarian. And just to clarify, I'm not a vegan (someone who eats no animal products), I do eat eggs and dairy, but I don't eat fish or chicken - nothing (as a friend of mine once said) with a face. 

When I tell people I'm a vegetarian most ask why I don't eat meat. The reason is that it's against my values. I don't believe it's right to prematurely end the life of an animal when there are perfectly good alternatives. It makes me sound sort of pompous when I say that out loud though so I generally just mumble something about being an environmentalist and change the subject. Another reason I'm vague is because I've learned over the years that my extreme beliefs tend to invite debate with the opposing side of that argument. It's a viewpoint I've heard many times...God put animals on this earth for us to utilize and when we eat them we honor them. 

Here in Uganda I would find that to be a relatively plausible argument because many people have goats and chickens. The meat you buy at the market is either still alive or hangs proudly from the front of vendor stalls. It's not ground up and wrapped in shiny plastic supermarket packages, divorcing you from the reality that the hamburger you're about to consume was once a cow. When the lives of humans are taken prematurely we call it serial killing or cannibalism. We're shocked and appalled. When the life of a cow gets taken we call it dinner.

Or I should say 90 percent of Americans call it dinner, I am one of the other 10 percent who don't. In general I don't consider myself to be a hard core activist about my beliefs. In 20 years of vegetarianism I've rarely tried to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I don't want people to run in the other direction when they see me coming - the life of a militant activist is a lonely one I would expect. Maybe that's why I don't donate to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

 

Or maybe I don't donate to PETA because I don't like their marketing tactics. They're trying to be edgy - to rise above the information noise and make veganism seem cool by targeting a young demographic with shocking ad campaigns. Perhaps you remember the one they ran on college campuses a few years ago encouraging students to drink beer not milk? The latest is a viral video, Boyfriend Went Vegan, which I've included a link to if you want to watch it. At more than 3 million views it's certainly drawing attention for the organization, but at what price to the vegan cause? PETA's "ends justify the means" approach embodies everything I abhor about extreme views. Of course, I could just be biased against them because I know they will never employ me...they only hire vegans. 

And while I do embrace vegetarianism, so far I've been unable to live the austere life of a vegan, and it's for exactly the same reason that most people give me when they tell me why they eat meat - because it tastes so good. Ice cream, cheese, yogurt and warm buttered bread are just a few of the things that make life worth living.

But for the past three weeks in Uganda my diet has been mostly vegan. Ugandans aren't really big on dairy. Their cookies are dry as dust and their ice cream reminds me of vanilla flavored wall insulation. But they have something much better...fruit so delicious that to describe it as such is almost an injustice. Sweet and juicy pineapple, mango, papaya, jackfruit, and watermelon. There are also tiny apple bananas that can be eaten fresh or combined with millet flour and deep fried to create banana pancakes. The fruit is so wonderful that I haven't missed dairy. And this morning I realized the side benefit of clear skin.

So maybe I should reconsider veganism again, not just for the sake of clearer skin, but for the clarity it would bring to my values as well.  The problem though is, as Oscar Wilde said, "I can resist everything but temptation". Kampala doesn't have Butlers chocolate and Irish cheese. After returning to Dublin, I'll probably cave after a few weeks of abstinence.

Normally I don't have to think too much about this compromise to my values, but here in Kampala where the roosters crow every morning and the goats wander casually along the side of the road it's hard to ignore. And I'm reminded of what my Aunt Joan used to tell me about the dismal life of a dairy cow. She was truly someone who could understand and appreciate both sides of the argument, having been both a farmer and a minister's wife.  During our discussions she never tried to push me in one direction or the other, instead she just asked that I give some depth to my values through critical examination and reflection. 

So I have a lot to think about over the next month I suppose. It's a fine line between accommodation and compromise.  A former colleague once gave me a t-shirt from a fast food burger chain because he said he appreciated that I wasn't closed to other viewpoints. Now I wonder if whether in being so accommodating I've compromised my values. Maybe it's time for me to reexamine my commitment to vegetarianism. Maybe it's time to go vegan.

Strategic Planning...Uganda Style

Friday I delivered my first assignment at CDRN, a presentation on technology trends. They gave me an opportunity to contribute to their strategic planning offsite last week by doing what I love, immersing myself in technology strategy. There are a lot of different ways to approach strategy development, but the process I follow is one that hasn't varied since it was first taught to me years ago by a colleague. It's called creative visioning and I use it because it focuses on the promise of technology while also mitigating the risk of uncertainty that is inherent in the technology environment. 

It also involves identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that comprise the cultural context of the technology environment, which for me was problematic because I'm new to Uganda and to CDRN. But over the course of last week's three day offsite I absorbed information. And on Friday I used what I'd learned to create contextual questions for the group that would help them decide which technologies to apply from the trends that I provided. What follows are both the trends and what I've learned so far about technology's role in Uganda and at CDRN. How they will apply this in the coming weeks I can't say, but I know that it will be a collaborative process because this is a core value of the organization. Normally I would call this teamwork, but CDRN seems to have elevated it to something more akin to family.

Cultural Context



In the baby boom race, Uganda leaves Ireland in the dust. The median age here is 15, and 75 percent of the population are under the age of 25. There are babies everywhere...three of the CDRN staff have children under the age of 6 months. So how is this accommodated at an offsite? Are moms excluded? Are they told to just be there and then left to figure out their family situation? For CDRN, the solution is to include the babies in the greater organizational family. When we climbed into the minibus to leave for the retreat, moms, babies and caregivers all travelled along. Over the course of the offsite, CDRN staff played with the babies, calmed them when they cried, took them to the doctor when they were sick, and in short, treated them as part of the extended family.

Another element of the extended family were the additional participants who attended the first two days. In my experience, technical experts, customers, and suppliers are generally invited to strategy sessions, but I've never seen former employees on the participant list unless they're paid consultants. At CDRN, however; the insight of former employees is not just welcomed, it's sought out. 

 




John De Conick

John De Conick is the founder of CDRN and ran the organization up until around 2008. His presentation provided perspective on the changing Ugandan environment, particularly what he saw to be trends of declining donor funding, a shift towards a larger government bureaucracy, and a greater priority given to self-determination within Uganda and national security outside of Uganda. He related these trends to Civil Society Organizations, specifically their proliferation, commercialization, and increased competition with for-profit consultancies and international NGOs doing CSO work. 

Arthur Larok, formerly of CDRN and currently the leader of ActionAid, followed John with a slightly different perspective. Arthur discussed an activist approach to address the imbalance of power that exists between government and society, which of course makes sense given that the Black Monday movement is sponsored by ActionAid. CDRN's role is largely one of capacity building though, not activism, and so Arthur also discussed how important it was to understand what "capacity building" really means. It is not simply linear knowledge transfer - that model isn't sustainable because there is no community ownership of the solutions that are implemented. According to Arthur, capacity building is "helping people to recognize their own potential by creating the conditions under which empowerment happens".

Isn't that the very definition of leadership?

I can personally attest that leadership is what Joseph Ssuuna, the current Executive Director of CDRN embodies. Everyone at CDRN has welcomed me warmly, but from a professional perspective I'm a bit of a curiosity...until Friday nobody quite knew how I could help. Musanje Brian started the discovery process by giving me the opportunity to present technology trends. Joseph then, through the course of the offsite, repeatedly linked my expertise to potential benefit for the organization. He gave me confidence and he gave others an appreciation for the perspective that I bring to CDRN, and so by the morning of my presentation, he had created the very conditions under which empowerment happens.

Joseph Ssuuna

Following are the technology trends I presented that are emerging in a different way in Uganda than they emerged in Europe and the US, and the implications of this difference over the next few years here. For anyone reading this blog with an opinion on these trends, I would really appreciate it if you'd take a few minutes and lend CDRN your expertise though comments to the post.

Cloud Computing

If you use Skype, then you are already using cloud Voice Over IP to supplement or replace telephone, chat messaging, and virtual meeting services. A few years ago, cloud services emerged offering low cost, reliable, and scalable Internet-based applications and data storage. Now many organizations are eliminating their internal email, file storage, and business process applications in favor of commercially hosted alternatives provided by Google, Amazon, and others. 

There are many advantages to these services, but there is one dependency, robust Internet access. In a previous post I talked about how the Internet connection at CDRN doesn't have the necessary speed or reliability to support cloud services, but robust Internet access does exist in Kampala and even in many parts of greater Uganda, and so it's just a matter of understanding the costs and weighing those against the potential benefits of having a company like Google as your IT service provider. 

Open Data (e-Gov)

Open data has three core elements:

1. Government-provided data for social services, budgets, etc, hosted on a public platform in an accessible format
2. The ability to extract and transform that data into information
3. Summarizing that information and communicating it in a meaningful way to interested parties

Open data is an emerging trend that fosters government accountability through information transparency. There are many democratic countries beginning to provide data, in the US it's provided at data.gov and the extract and transform part is consolidated in a "Code for America" initiative. Kenya's open data initiative was launched back in 2011 and is considered a best practice model for Africa.

Open data initiatives rely on cooperation between the data provider (the government) and those who want to turn that data into meaningful information. At the trade-show I attended recently I got a reality check on open data in Uganda. We were told that due to security concerns, the Ugandan government is hesitant to "expose" the raw data to the public. That said, the Ministry of Finance has provided a large quantity of data in an accessible format. Other ministries have provided data as well in .pdf which isn't accessible, but it's a start. 

And interestingly, Civil Society Organizations have responded to the data availability problem by leading their own open data initiative called the OpenDev partnership. CSOs collect a lot of monitoring data on social services and in the absence of government leadership, are carrying the initiative forward on their own. At the trade-show the leaders of the initiative asked CSOs to contribute their data and work together to influence the government to do the same. It will be interesting to see how successful this model will be without leadership from of one of the key players. Perhaps through their absence though, they will ultimately reduce dependency on government-provided data, which in the end may be a more sustainable model.

Mobile Technologies

You probably already know about the exponential growth of mobile technologies, specifically cell phones in Africa. You may also know that this growth is enabled by a good cellular infrastructure and the privatization of cellular companies which creates competition and drives down prices. Growth is also fuelled by mobile applications like M-Pesa in Kenya and MTN mobile money here in Uganda. But in Africa, extracting the next level of mobile value (Internet access and mobile applications) is problematic.

One issue is the high cost of smartphones. For example, the iPhone 5 costs about $600 US when it's not purchased as part of a contract. Other out of contract smartphones can be as inexpensive as $200, but that's still way beyond the reach of most Ugandans. In the US and increasingly in Europe, smartphone hardware cost is spread over the life of a multi-year usage contract, but here "pay as you go" minutes are purchased instead of contracts so consumers pay the full price of the mobile phone as an up-front cost. In other countries, people are purchasing used smartphones, but Ugandans don't have access to these because of the import ban on used electronics. In general I'm against import bans, but I support the one on used mobile phones and the Ugandan government's efforts to crack down on the black market, because the entire system relies on mobile phone theft. Overall, it's a difficult situation that likely means smartphone adoption will continue to lag in Uganda.

 

Even if most Ugandans could afford smartphones there's yet another problem. Mobile data gathering projects are breeding like rabbits here in Uganda without any coordination. Increasingly CSOs are using SMS and automated call centers to gather data from communities, and because even the cheapest mobile phones here have radio, they're using this channel to deliver information back to society. This would be great if it were part of a planned approach to improve social services, but it's not. Every NGO or CSO with funding is implementing their project without regard to the projects that have gone before. A community is asked to gather school attendance data, for example, by one NGO using one mobile technology platform, and then asked by another to gather perhaps slightly different data using another mobile technology platform for a different NGO. People wonder why mobile data gathering adoption is so low but it seems pretty simple, it's too much of a good thing. 

The Ugandan government is injecting some sense into this chaos by curtailing some mobile projects until a coordinated plan can be put in place. For CSOs I think the lesson is to stop being so distracted by technology and think about the meaning of capacity building as Arthur defined it. Within that context a sensible approach can be designed.

Social Media

Social media is hardly an upcoming trend in many parts of the world, but it is in Uganda. According to SocialBakers there are only about 500,000 Ugandan Facebook users. That's less than 2 percent of the population using what is unarguably the most popular social media platform in the world. And given the previously mentioned barriers to Internet and smartphone adoption, it may not take off anytime soon. 

But many other people around the world are using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media applications and so I would argue that while it may not be a way to connect with Ugandan society, it is certainly a way to engage with others outside of Uganda. And perhaps, by building that capacity, it may reduce some of the barriers that exist today in the previously mentioned trends. Black Monday is using social media, the Mabira Rainforest campaign relied heavily on social media, perhaps those 500,000 Facebook users are the influencers needed to drive this technology forward for Uganda.

In Conclusion

After wading through this lengthy post filled with technical jargon you may be just as exhausted and overwhelmed as I was at the end of CDRN's offsite. It was like learning a year's worth of information in three days, but it was extremely valuable information that will benefit both my research and CDRN's strategic direction. Note that there is one key contextual element missing from this post, CDRN's business strategy. As I mentioned, the new five year strategy is currently drafted and the presentations and discussion at the offsite will be incorporated into the final version. Because the strategy is an internal document, it's not appropriate to share the details here, but the strategy informed both the trends that I chose to delve into and the potential application of those trends.

In conclusion I'd like to leave you with this thought. An organization's strategy is, at its heart, a reflection of the culture. If the culture is healthy, if stakeholders have a say, if the organization's actions are aligned with its values, if there is good communication and an overall sense of "we're in this together fulfilling an important mission" then the foundation is there for good strategic planning. And that foundation is the place where transformation begins.

Musanje Brian and the CDRN team engaged in transformation.

Black Monday

Every Monday is Black Monday in Uganda. It’s a day where citizens wear black to visibly demonstrate their "discontent at the theft of public funds". Today I’m wearing black as well even though I’m not Ugandan, because I can empathize. The US government may not rank high on the corruption indices as Uganda does but I think we have the same problem of greed – where the demands of the privileged few are met at the expense of public good. The principles that keep greed in check, namely accountability, transparency and civic responsibility have been eroded, and the result is corruption. 

From Transparency International:


A colleague of mine at CDRN said something to me that I thought was very profound. He said that every citizen in a society has rights, but rights do not necessarily equate to entitlement – members of society establish these rights and thereby have an obligation to defend them when they are at risk of being eroded or lost. In the US have we abdicated that responsibility to proxy organizations?

We have established government agencies that are meant to enforce laws provided for the common good....the Environmental Protection Agency for example, but in any given political term these agencies can either be powerful enforcement bodies or puppets of the party agenda. In addition, non-profits and unions advocate for society, but as these organizations embed themselves in political and corporate systems are they not susceptible to corruption and greed as well?

In a recent article for the Black Monday movement, Arthur Larok of ActionAid Uganda said, “Many have argued that corruption is not just a political institution, but a social one as well”. Perhaps it is because of this that in Uganda there is a more grassroots approach to ensuring a fair and just society - Civil Society Organizations.

CDRN is one such organization. Its mission is: “To contribute to the growth of a vibrant and self determined civil society that defends the rights of the poor and promotes peace, justice, democracy and social equity“. CDRN goes into communities in rural Uganda and facilitates a process whereby the community’s needs are identified and prioritized, then assessed against the actual social services provided, improvements are negotiated with service providers, and then a sustainment plan is put in place to ensure that the newly improved services to not revert back to the previous state. CDRN works with communities in a way that improves governance through shared accountability, and in doing so, they reduce the power imbalance I spoke of in an earlier post. They also promote the responsibilities that citizens have in holding governments accountable. And they do this with a collaborative approach that works through official government channels.

Sometimes though, change cannot occur entirely within the system and so in Uganda there are activist groups that seek to give members of society a voice as well - the Black Monday Movement is one example. The primary goals of Black Monday are to “put an end to corruption, to streamline government bureaucracy, and to end tax holidays and instead invest tax money in infrastructure”. They ask citizens to wear black on Monday, to reject all acts of corruption, and to isolate and boycott those who are known to be corrupt. 

The challenge in a country as large and dispersed as Uganda though, is to reach everyone with this message. To that end Black Monday has produced monthly paper newsletters to be distributed across the country, they also use social media, hold public meetings, and use radio to reach to the furthest edges of Uganda. For many Ugandans outside of Kampala, radio is the primary means of obtaining information. Here is a clip from one of their audiocasts.

Black Monday and CDRN have very different means of achieving the same end - advocacy. "At its core, advocacy is about ordinary citizens doing ordinary things of extraordinary importance to change their lives." There are thousands of civil society organizations in Uganda that are united by a common belief, as stated in CDRN's 2012 Annual Report, founded on "people being the drivers of their own change".

Power

It's a warm and peaceful Friday evening and I'm looking forward to the weekend. I've been here in Uganda a week now, and friends are asking me, well....what do you think? My answer is that it's both beautiful and heartbreaking here.

I keep saying how wonderful the people are and I know that I'm doing a terrible job of describing the intelligence and spirit and earnestness of the Ugandan people. I am absolutely confounded as to why, in a country with such incredible people, and with such rich resources, there also exists this preponderance of abject poverty. I can only believe that it must be the imbalance of power in society because if everyone was free to contribute to the best of their abilities, then Uganda would not be in the situation it's in today.

One example of that situation is the country is ranked 110 out of 144 countries with respect to its ability to leverage technology. That ability, as you may well know, has a positive economic impact. For every 10 percent increase in technology adoption, you get over a half percent GDP bump. In today's knowledge economy tech savviness wins the race and Uganda has fallen far behind countries like Kenya where the government sponsors iHub incubators, Open Data, and other technology initiatives. Uganda has done a good job establishing cellular networks and privatizing technology services, but it still has a long way to go. And in the latest budget there is only just over $6 million earmarked for technology improvements. That's not going to buy much...certainly not enough to lift the poorest members of society out of poverty.

And here the level of poverty is startling, as is the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest members of society. I've spent the last two days at a trade show in a four star hotel that could hold its own in any European country. It was shock after spending the last week living in everyday Ugandan society, walking into the air conditioned luxury of this hotel - a hotel that is no more than a mile away from one of the slums of Kampala. We drove through this slum yesterday and it was like nothing I've ever seen...hundreds of ramshackle wooden board houses leaning together over an open ditch. Children running alongside the cars that slowly negotiate the pothole strewn dirt road. An elderly man sitting on the ground in the doorway of a house that used to be a shipping container. The toxic smoke of open trash fires mixing with diesel exhaust, choking the air. I can't conceive of a world where people have to live like this.

And even though I have only been here a week, I have a sense of what it feel like to be powerless to change the situation. At the hotel there was an elderly woman scavenging plastic bottles from the outdoor vendor area at the end of the day. I saw her picking up bottles and placing them into large plastic bags...one about the same size as she was, the other slightly smaller. After filling the two bags, she began to fill a third. The problem was that she couldn't quite manage all three. She balanced the largest bag on the top of her head and held the second bag, but when she tried to pick up the third, she tipped the bag that was balanced on her head, and in righting it, spilled the contents of the small bag onto the ground. I saw her struggling, went over to her and picked up the bottles, put them back in the bag, and handed it to her. She gave me the most beautiful smile. I wanted to cry. Here I was, a citizen of one of the most powerful countries in the world and this was all I could do to help her.

People ask me what the Development Practice program is that I'm studying at Trinity. It's a program that teaches us about critical issues that have been outlined in the Millennium Development Goals, like extreme poverty, and provides training for how to address these issues. With technology, the best kind of training is the kind that's hands on. It's impossible to learn how to use a computer unless you can sit in front of one, type on the keyboard, click the mouse, and see the result on the monitor. It would appear that is true for Development as well. For the past year I've been learning the theory of structural power imbalances, and the impediment they are to a fair and just society, but until I got here to Uganda I didn't really understand.

There's no point in learning about the problems though, if you don't also learn about the solutions. Monday's post will be dedicated to talking about the Civil Society Organizations in Uganda that exist to level the playing field. If anything is going to fix this power imbalance problem, I think it will be them.

I Brought a Broadband Connection to a Dialup World

Even though it was more than 10 years ago, I remember the day like it was yesterday. I hooked up my new DSL modem and voila, my world was transformed from dialup to broadband. Web pages that had previously taken minutes to download now appeared in a flash. I could look at photos and videos - all of the rich content that the worldwide web had to offer spread out like a blanket before me. It was a miracle.

But over time I just got used to the high speed connection. I stopped marvelling at it...I watched television episodes, listened to radio, and uploaded gigabytes worth of photos and content, all without an ounce of appreciation for the wonders of broadband. 

And as time continued to pass, my world shifted...I’m not sure exactly when it happened, perhaps it started with the advent of social media and cloud computing, perhaps before that, but without even noticing I started becoming completely dependent upon those hair-thin fibreoptic strands. And I wasn’t alone. In the past five years the balance has shifted from dialup optimized web pages and content to sites that require a broadband connection. Dialup is now agonizingly slow.  

I know this first-hand because here at CDRN the entire organization is connected to the Internet by a dialup modem. It sits about six feet away from me, a small white box with three blinking green lights. Alfred, the head of security, comes into my office whenever a lightning storm threatens and unplugs it, cutting off Internet access to the entire office to protect the modem from power surges. It’s my responsibility to power it up on Monday mornings when I arrive. And although I share this control with Alfred, it still makes me feel a bit like a god knowing that I control the Internet*.

Curious about just how slow the Internet connection is here, I tested it this morning. I began by running broadband tests (which didn’t really work because the connection is so slow). So then I just started calling up web pages. Yahoo! took three minutes to load. YouTube loaded after five minutes, but I can’t imagine why it bothered...there is no way a video would play off of a dialup connection.  Some pages won’t even load. Facebook timed out.

Like an addict, I have become so dependent upon a broadband connection that I can’t function. I’ve switched off CDRN's network and exclusively use my iPhone wi-fi hotspot.  I wonder, though, how does CDRN cope?  When I talked with Brian Musanje, head of IT, he said that this is how most SMEs in Kampala operate. Dialup is the norm.

I expected to experience a language barrier here, but so far I haven’t, everyone speaks fluent English. I expected to accidently offend people with my agnostic religious beliefs and environmental radicalism, but again I haven't because people are extremely accommodating. What I didn’t expect though, was to encounter a dialup culture that functions just fine in the Internet slow lane.  My worldwide web is tilting sideways a bit today.
 

*Note:  Hi Mom! :-) The bold text you see on all of the pages are clickable links to additional information.

Update: I have no idea why but the Internet connection is moving along at a decent clip this afternoon (I thought I'd give it one more try). This morning it was an electronic turtle as usual, but this afternoon it was so fast that I thought I'd give broadband speed test another try...check it out - I believe this qualifies as DSL! Maybe our worlds are not so different afterall...