"Drawing on years of experience across 45 counties, as well as extensive original academic research, Willem van Eekelen situates the evolving role of ICT in wider development patterns in the Global South. He discusses the effects of ICT on agriculture, trade, financial flows, resource management and
...
governmental performance. He then considers the associated risks of financial insecurity, online gambling, exclusion, misinformation and the effects of ICT on people’s freedom. The book concludes with six recommendations to maximise the usefulness of rural ICT investments and minimise the risk of them causing harm." (Publisher description)
more
"Recent years have seen the expansion of critical scholarship on humanitarian communication across a range of academic fields, sharing recognition of the centrality of media and communications to our understanding of humanitarianism as an agent of transnational power, global governance and cosmopoli
...
tan solidarity. The Handbook brings into dialogue these diverse fields, their theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches as well as the public debates that lie at the heart of the contemporary politics of humanitarianism. It consolidates existing knowledge and maps out this emerging field as an important site of interdisciplinary knowledge production on media, communication and humanitarianism." (Publisher description)
more
"Digital feedback has large potential for consumer protection. The customer experiences shared in the different social media channels have proven to be a rich source of information with the potential of answering a large number of questions. Who will make use of this data and methods going forward,
...
and how will it benefit people? Regulators, who can apply new approaches to have automated tools for market monitoring, providing real-time statistics and early warning signs on action that should be taken, so that issues can be addressed earlier, with the potential for more cost-effective interventions; financial Inclusion donor organizations, which have a mandate to ensure that the growth of financial services goes in line with consumer protection and is socially responsible; Innovation for Poverty Action, by adding a new data approach to inform new experimental interventions; consumers themselves, as digital communities begin to form around creating transparent information about providers." (Executive summary)
more
"Through a case study of Kiva.org, the world's first person-to-person microlending website, and other microfinance organizations, the book argues that international development efforts have an affective dimension. This is fostered through narrative and visual representations, through the performance
...
of development rituals and through bonds of fellowship between Northern donors and Southern recipients. These practices constitute people in the global North as everyday humanitarians and mobilize their affective investments, which are financial, social and emotional investments in distant others to alleviate their poverty. This book draws on ethnographic material from the US, India and Indonesia and the anthropological and development studies literature on humanitarianism, affect and the public faces of development. It opens up novel avenues of research into the formation of new development subjects in the global North." (Publisher description)
more
"Seit 2012 fördert Oikocredit in Kambodscha eine landesweite Radiosendung, die der ländlichen Bevölkerung Grundkenntnisse in Finanzfragen vermitteln und zugleich nachhaltige Unternehmenspraktiken fördern soll. Finanzielle Grundbildung ist für Oikocredit das entscheidende Instrument, um die Hera
...
usforderungen des wachsenden Mikrofinanzsektors in Kambodscha zu bewältigen. Sie ermöglicht es den Menschen, fundiertere Entscheidungen treffen und die Risiken zu hoher Kredite besser zu verstehen. Überschuldung bei Mikrokreditkundinnen und -kunden zu vermeiden, ist Teil der sieben Kundenschutzrichtlinien, deren Umsetzung Oikocredit vorantreibt." (Seite 8)
more
"In der noch jungen indonesischen Demokratie gibt es mittlerweile um die 600 Community Radios, wovon sich 400 auf Java befinden. Sie senden in einem begrenzten Radius und im Interesse ihrer Community. Je nach Region und Bedarf gibt es verschiedene thematische Ausrichtungen. In katastrophengeplagten
...
Gebieten geht es um Disaster Management, in anderen Regionen geht es um nachhaltige Entwicklung und Wiederaufforstungsprogramme. Bei manchen geht es um die Bewahrung der Kultur, oder um politische Partizipation. Durch viel Engagement und Eigeninitiative schaffen die Radiomacher es, die Gemeinschaft zu verbinden und zu stärken. »Der Staat hilft uns nicht, also helfen wir uns selbst«, war ein Satz, den ich auf meiner zweimonatigen Reise durch Java oft hörte. Die Erwähnung der Community Radios im Rundfunkgesetz (Broadcasting Act No. 32/2002) wurde 2002 als großer Erfolg gefeiert, denn es bietet die Möglichkeit, durch den Erwerb von Lizenzen aus dem Zustand des »illegalen Radios« herausgeführt zu werden, was letztendlich auch vor Polizei-Razzien schützt. Bis heute jedoch stecken die Community Radios im Registrierungsprozess fest, und kein einziges hat bisher eine Lizenz erworben. Netzwerke wie JRSP fordern die Regierung auf, die hohen Hürden zu überarbeiten, doch bisher ist nichts passiert." (Seite 41)
more
"L’objectif de cet article est d’essayer de définir les contours d’expérimentations de financement des médias de proximité par les circuits de finance locale notamment dans les milieux ruraux et enclavés. Les médias de proximité et les établissements de microfinance ont considérés ic
...
i comme des catalyseurs du développement local. Cependant, la faiblesse de leur modèle économique et leur appartenance plus ou moins forte au secteur informel font des médias communautaires de petits acteurs économiques comme les autres qui doivent être inclus dans le système financier pour pouvoir tirer profit des opportunités notamment offertes par le développement des nouvelles technologies. Ils peuvent constituer une cible importante pour les institutions de microfinance. Après avoir mise en lumière les contraintes de financement des médias de proximité notamment en milieu rural et enclavé, les complémentarités entre médias communautaires de service public et établissements de microfinance seront définies afin de pouvoir élaborer des solutions de schéma de microfinance liés ou non à des coopérations entre médias de proximité et institutions de microfinance, notamment par la mise en route de tontines institutionnalisées de radios communautaires. Les solutions envisagées dans cette article mêlent crédit et épargne : prêts liés au développement de services en commun (média de proximité et établissement de microfinance, ou encore régie publicitaire commune pour un réseau de radios communautaires), crédit court terme liés à la capacité d’épargne du média de proximité, prélèvement sur intérêts versés sur les encours d’épargne de clients, tontine de financement des radios de proximité réunies en réseau." (Résumé)
more
"This paper examines how banks can translate the potential of mobile phones into greater financial access for poor people. Although mobile phone operators have been able to use the mobile phone for mobile remittance and bill payment services in several countries, banks have had little success in usi
...
ng mobile phones as part of a growth or outreach strategy. This paper focuses on smaller banks or microfinance institutions (MFIs) that face a much higher cost-of-service delivery because of the smaller transaction values they handle and the likely more remote and dispersed location of at least some of their customers. The opportunity seems particularly great for them, but implementation challenges also loom larger because of their small scale. This discussion assumes these banks and MFIs have adequate back office and transaction switching capability and sufficient internal controls, whether managed in-house or outsourced." (Page 1)
more
"During the last decade, development partners around the globe have gained rich experience and knowledge about the application of ICT for poverty reduction and its value for reaching the Millennium Development Goals and the goals of Poverty Reduction Strategies. But scaling up the results of success
...
ful projects into programmes and policies that lead directly to poverty reduction on a country-wide scale is still a challenge. Lessons learned from experience so far can be summarised around the following themes: Prioritising poverty reduction; creating an enabling ICT policy environment; appropriate technology choices; local content development and the role of the media; mobilisation of financial resources and the role of microcredit." (Page 3)
more