[kictanet] Universal Access in Kenya (Is it really working?)

Fri Dec 3 16:05:12 EAT 2010

Edith,
Safaricom moved with speed to roll out.  I will find out the new person responsible for DVs in Safaricom and link her/him to you.  

It is unfortunate that I did not attend the function.  I understand these were study findings that did not find out in detail what we as the implenters were doing and where.  IBM study which visted several DVs started from our offices and the findings have direct impact because we shall seek to implement all the recommendations.

It is criminal that there are youth and women in this country who do not know that there is money available for setting up business.  It is also equally inexusable that we have unemployed graduates who should be trained to write business plans for youth and women enterprises.  There is enough money in CDF to provide such training.

We (all of us) must begin to dirty our hands by moving from conference rooms to begin hands on training in rural Kenya.  In 1963 we agreed that ignorance is one of the diseases we wanted to eliminate but 47 years down the road a Kenyan is suffering somewhere yet there is plenty of resources to move us forward.  I fail to understand for example, how we tolerate  a dirty city, uncollected rates and a high unemployment.

We have agency banking law that would make DVs an instant success as remote banking facilities but even the most educated Kenyan sometimes has no idea this law exists.  How can we move from complaining to discussing such issues that are bound to signicantly affect our lifes?

Ndemo.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: Edith Adera <eadera at idrc.or.ke>
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 14:33:03 
To: bitange at jambo.co.ke<bitange at jambo.co.ke>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: RE: [kictanet] Universal Access in Kenya (Is it really working?)

Bwana Ndemo,

The mood on the universal access issue was that of "frustration" at the workshop, and no one seemed to be aware that " one operator has already rolled out 500 of these DVs" - is this information available within the public domain? Where are these DVs? Which operator? Are there targets and a penalty for the rest not rolling out given that this is in lieu of paying for UA -  which is a citizen right?

I can't agree with you more on the need to have young people bold enough to " take the appropriate risks to innovate and develop successful enterprises". I dare to add that we need "A new breed of young people" that will:-
* exude self-confidence; 
*will demonstrate effective leadership with integrity; 
*will have the ethos of community service; 
*and will take risks, innovative and build mega businesses.

The issue of targeting the age of 15-29 years was prominent in the discussions at the workshop. Unfortunately, not many young people know that these funds exist or even how to access them (this was evident in a recent regional forum we organized on youth and ICTs and youth from Kibera and rural Kenya were shocked to learn of it!).

Indeed, the idea of the research work is to "emphasize evidence based decision-making" - the prominence and active participation of representatives from the Ministry of Planning, Poverty Unit and Vision 2030 was very welcome by participants! and it's our hope that some of the ideas that came out of the forum will be taken up. The PS challenged the academia to partner with govt. to do further analysis on the census data (which has now been released) to further explore the issues on ICTs and poverty (since ICT questions were quite prominent in the census). 

We look forward to more information on the 500 DVs.

Edith

-----Original Message-----
From: kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+eadera=idrc.or.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of bitange at jambo.co.ke
Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 1:34 PM
To: Edith Adera
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Universal Access in Kenya (Is it really working?)

Listers,
I am on record several times complaining the slow pace by the World Bank to release the funds for the Pasha project.  I am told that this will happen in January even though their pilot projects are operational.

This did not stop us from advancing the digital village concept.  We invited the operators to roll them out in return for not paying the first year USF.  One operator has already rolled out 500 of these DVs.  There is a committee in place to help the rest of the operators roll out.

IBM conducted a study on DVs to help further develop the value proposition.  As a result we have key corporations willing to participate.  For example CFC Stanbic want their online share trade to be on DVs.

The challenge we have is getting entrepreneurs from every constituency.  Most regions folks expect grants.  The resources available are for revolving funds.  In other words loans to set up the enterprise.  There is plenty of loanable resources from Youth and Women Enterprise to the world bank.  Our people must get to understand risk and enterprise.  Individually we must spend all our energies to educate our people.  

I must state here that the last time we advertised, 95 percent of the 2000 applications came from one ethnic group.  We could not move for obvious reasons.  I would hope in future listers seek to understand the problem before rushing to making conclusions.  At this time of our development we must emphasize evidence based decisions.

We are talking to MPs to assist disseminate some of these information.  Our Parliamentary Chairman Hon. Eng. Spends most of the time explaining and encouraging MPs to sensatize their own people.  We cannot for for example to North Hor and put up a DV without willing people to run it.

On NOFBI I do not know what you are talking about because I know some operators are using the network and it is managed by TKL.

Ndemo.

Sent from my BlackBerry(r)

-----Original Message-----
From: John Kieti <jkieti at gmail.com>
Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 10:36:25
To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Universal Access in Kenya (Is it really working?)

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