It’s great to be back after a two-year hiatus. I agree with most of the previous contributors (David Michael, Themba Phiri, Lal Manavado) on the critical role that ICT plays in reducing the transaction cost associated with accessing strategic information, which may, in turn help to boost productivity and efficiency of resource use.
I, however, wanted to delve on the monitoring and evaluation of ICT projects particularly focusing on project attribution. To illustrate my point, I will randomly pick on two in Sub-Saharan Africa: There are a number of interesting projects that have been developed over the years in East and Southern Africa. In Rwanda, for instance, they have a project called E-Soko, run under the auspices of Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB) and provides market-based information on prices of various agricultural products. This helps farmers to make informed decisions when selling and buying. Down in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s Econet has also developed an initiative called “Eco farmer” and it is a platform that seeks to provide a wide array of agricultural information on the farmers’ phones. While the impact of such kind of initiatives cannot be denied, there is a possibility of “under/over-estimating” benefits. For example, when a farmer receives information about weather patterns or new crop varieties, it is typical for them to share with other farmers in the community who may have phones but not necessarily participating in such projects. Moreover, they can also share information with others who may not even have phones at all. This implies that if we were to compare “participants” and “non-participants” (i.e. the with and without comparison), we are essentially observing groups of farmers that have been interacting to an extent that the control group now has experienced “information gains” because rural communities tend to be closely knit societies.
This brings me to the question that I would like to pose to other members: what techniques can we use to properly measure the benefits emanating from ICTs?
Dr. Edward Mutandwa