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Document Information

Document ID: W4RA-VOICES Field Report Date: 18/02/2011 Issued by: VUA-WF-SE Work Package / task: WP5 / task 5.1 Status: Final Dissemination level: Public Distribution: WF VU SE Authors: Hans Akkermans, Aman Grewal, Anna Bon, Wendelien

Tuyp, Mary Allen, Nana Baah Gyan

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Table of contents 1. Preamble ........................................................................................................................................... 42. About the W4RA project ................................................................................................................... 43. About the VOICES project ................................................................................................................. 44. Pilot on knowledge sharing for agricultural purposes ...................................................................... 55. Summary of the road show in West Africa ....................................................................................... 66. Technology demonstrations ............................................................................................................. 87. The road ahead ............................................................................................................................... 12

Participants of the road show Workshop locations References

Workshop in Gourcy, Burkina Faso

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1. Preamble The World Wide Web is for all of us. But not yet everyone on this planet enjoys its important benefits: still more than 4.5 billion people do not have access to the Web. The Web alliance for Regreening in Africa (W4RA) and VOICES are initiatives to help extend the Web benefits of the knowledge society and economy to people in rural communities in Africa. To do so serious challenges must be addressed, in content, access, and language. At present information on the Web is not relevant for farmers in the Sahel. But, mobile telephony is now in the reach of many poor people. This trend opens up great opportunities. Most African farmers do not have fancy smart phones with internet access. They use simple old fashioned mobile phones, only for chatting. They don't even use their phones for sending or receiving SMS. Therefore the W4RA and VOICES projects focus on access and interaction with the Web, based on voice.

At Radio Moutian Stéphane Boyera gave his fist live interview for the radio. “What is the Web…?”

2. About the W4RA project

W4RA, Web alliance for Regreening in Africa [1] is a project which was launched in October 2009 by the VU University Amsterdam. It started in January 2010 and is run by three partners: The Network Institute of VU University Amsterdam (VUA), The World Wide Web Foundation (WF) and Sahel Eco (SE) from Mali. It was set up to support farmers and rural communities in the Sahel to enhance their channels for knowledge sharing, which are based on two main sources of information: mobile telephony and community radio. W4RA integrates local community radio into open and interactive voice-based mobile Web services.

3. About the VOICES project

The VOICES project [2] is a European project under the 7th framework programme (FP7), which started January 1st, 2011. The project will run for a period of 2,5 years and has a total budget of €2.9 million, of which €2 million is funded by the European Commission. The project is jointly implemented by a consortium 12 partners from eight different countries in Africa and Europe. The overall objective of VOICES is to remove a range of access barriers to the Web, related to access channels, literacy, and languages, by taking a major step forward in realizing the potential of mobile ICT services particularly in the African context.

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The VOICES objectives are to: 1. Improve voice-based access to content and mobile ICT services, by developing an Open Source toolbox for local ICT developers. 2. Integrate local community radio and ICTs, making audio content widely available to people. 3. Better support of local languages: speech technologies that facilitate content creation in African languages. 4. Long-term sustainability: provide a sustainable architecture and business models co-developed with local partners and communities. 5. Enhance uptake through community-building activities, such as a mobile training lab that offers education for local partners and entrepreneurs in developing mobile ICT and Web services. The partners in the VOICES project are: World Wide Web Foundation, France Telecom, TNO (The Netherlands), VU University Amsterdam, Centro di Ricerca, Sviluppo e Studi Superiori di Sardegna, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (South Africa), North West University (South Africa), Ecole Supérieure Multinationale des Télécommunications (Senegal), Sahel Eco (Mali), World Wide Web Consortium, Fondation Mérieux (France) and Portugal Telecom.

Women of small town Yameriga, in Ghana

4. Pilot on knowledge sharing for agricultural purposes To make sure that the results of W4RA and VOICES are adapted to the local African context extensive pilots and associated community building activities will be carried out. The two pilots will focus on health services in Senegal, and agriculture knowledge sharing (mobile Agro Knowledge Sharing Pilot) in the Sahel countries, especially in Mali. VU University Amsterdam is the leader of this pilot and cooperates with Sahel Eco and World Wide Web Foundation. From 14 – 26 January 2011 we organised a road show in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana as the first activity. Ghana and Burkina were also visited because the W4RA project has a focus on these countries too. The primary objective of this road show was to demonstrate services envisioned under the W4RA project, and the m-Agro Knowledge Sharing Pilot of the VOICES project. All the key findings from the road show would then be pooled in, to crystallize into a set of services, which would then constitute the core of W4RA technology offering.

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Road show target audiences included African project partners, NGO partners, agri- extension agents and ICT practitioners. Field research included conducting focus group discussions related to the technology demonstration(s) with extension agents, farmers and ICT practitioners. Qualitative data and usability feedback was collected at each demonstration site. Brainstorming sessions helped to finetune the technology services of the W4RA and VOICES projects. Below are the highlights, use cases gathered and major findings from the workshops held during the road show.

Itinerary starting in Bamako, Mali, ending in Tamale, northern Ghana

5. Summary of the road show in West Africa The itinerary from 14 to 26 January: Bamako – Segou – Tominian – Bandiagara – Bankass – Ouahigouya – Gourcy – Ouagadougou – Tamale – Bolgatanga – Ouagadougou. During the road show we visited several farmers on their fields, especially those who are involved in Regreening [3] [4] activities, also referred to as RNA (Régéneration Naturelle Assistée), or FMNR (Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration). Regreening is a central theme for the farmers in the Sahel, and knowledge sharing is an essential aspect of their activities. We visited several local community radio stations. Radio is an important voice channel for information exchange in this region. Radio not only generates voice content, but also acts as a local hub for information sharing [5] [6]. We organised six workshops at different locations, with the participation of relevant stakeholders (farmers, radio people, NGOs, local ICT entrepreneurs, farmer organisations, civil society organisations). VOICES team members demonstrated possible applications of voice services involving simple mobile phone and radio applications. The local participants were invited to share their thoughts on the usefulness of innovative voice services that could benefit their lives and work.

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Farmers and radio people in the field of farmer Moussa Sangara, near Tominian

We were able to gather extremely useful insights related to how participants generate and consume information. We also collected interesting use cases, see page 13 for more details. Overall Radio is the de-facto king of information across rural areas in the Sahel. People use it for many purposes, ranging from information related to lost or missing animals to more general info-tainment purposes. Farmers, farmer representatives, extension agents, community workers, young and old, all have mobile phones. And like raadio they use it for a variety of purposes: a milk seller in Tominian calls her clients to know the quantity they want to buy, or farmers in Mali will call for help when they see somebody cutting their trees. Women in Bolgatanga in Ghana actually share their mobile phones with other women in the community who cannot afford the total cost of ownership. In order to generate critical information that will facilitate the pilot implementation, we demonstrated voice technologies and held interactive question & answer sessions. This approach proved to be very helpful in developing a baseline understanding of what we should develop as a draft pilot. One of the key lessons learned relates to the baseline functionality of the tool. Technology services have to be robust and easy to use and manage. Remote installation and maintenance should be possible and help desk services should be provided. Local people should also be able to troubleshoot to avoid high travel costs. Although Mali is the target country for the VOICES pilot, activities may be extended to similar rural environments in Burkina Faso and Northern Ghana.

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First W4RA/VOICES workshop at Grand Hotel in Bamako: f.l.t.r. Hans Akkermans (VUA), Mohamed Dicko, Seydou Coulibaly, Ousmane D. (ICT-business Rib_ml)

6. Technology demonstrations

Web Foundation team members Stephane Boyera and Aman Grewal presented together with Nana Baah Gyan from the VU a set of voice based demos to the target audience. A brief snapshot of the same is as below1

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Voice-based demonstrations The overall goal was to show how voice services work through a simple phone. For the occasion we added an FM transmitter to demonstrate that a recorded message could be directly transmitted on to the radio and received by people with their own radio-sets. Synopsis: the demo is a portal that offers three services: listening to a broadcast program à-la-carte that offers a song and information on agriculture; recording a message to be broadcasted; and retrieving the messages that have been recorded. Access and tests French Demo: USA Domestic +1-857-293-0048 USA Toll Free PIN Access +1-800-289-5570 then PIN: 9991482462 Skype VoIP +99000936 9991482462; SIP VoIP sip:9991482462@sip.voxeo.net English Demo: USA Domestic +1 857-293-0046 USA Toll Free PIN Access +1-800-289-5570 then PIN: 9991482460 Skype VoIP +990009369991482460; SIP VoIP sip:9991482460@sip.voxeo.net Technical bits: it is possible to build a local platform to run the demo. Such platform is built on Asterisk and Voxeo Prophecy and uses a mobigater mini for answering local calls. In terms of VoiceXML, there are four parts: a portal that the user reaches when he calls in; and three different services attached to the portal.

1 Source: http://public.webfoundation.org/2011/01/demo_w4ra.html

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Synopsis: a very simple demo that is based on a hacked version of Ushahidi that shows what can be done with online maps, which is working offline too). Access: Go to the demo directly 7. Description of use-cases We collected a rich data set of use cases that will form the core of technology services under the W4RA and VOICES projects. Examples of current use of mobile phone in combination with the radio Live phone-in programmes

: for example at ORTM Segou the DJ selects songs numbered 1 to 40; listeners call in and choose a song number; if they are the first to select that particular song they are briefly interviewed live by the DJ who then plays the tune. This is very popular. There are similar phone-in programmes on other radio stations. It is used for entertainment (music, greetings) but also for debates on specific topics. Callers pay for phone call. Radio Seno was the only station without the equipment to do this satisfactorily.

Radio SENO Bankass: no Internet, no computers, many listeners

Market information system: there is a project, funded by Tree Aid, which is aimed at producers of non-timber forest products (e.g. honey, Shea nuts and butter) in 20 villages in Tominian. Mobile phones are used to communicate (verbally) information to the Sahel Eco Coordinator. Information (product, quantity, price, and contact phone number) is typed up, saved on a USB stick and then sent via internet (from a cyber cafe 20 km away) to three radio stations to be broadcasted. A hard copy of the information is given to Radio Mountian in

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Tominian. Potential clients either phone Sahel Eco to be put in touch with the producers or phone the producer directly (phone numbers are broadcasted) for more product/price information and to negotiate. In Ghana there are also market information systems based on SMS. Selling products:

a milk seller in Tominian sells her milk by phoning her customers instead of walking from house to house. She comes into the Sahel Eco office compound, sits down and phones all her potential clients to take their orders. She makes up the orders (milk is measured into plastic bags) and then delivers them and collects the money.

Tree alert system

: farmers in Mali use their phones to help protect their trees. If a farmer sees someone cutting trees he uses his mobile to inform other villagers who come out to help him. In Ghana a similar system is used to alert people to bush fires and call volunteers to put it out.

Organising events

: leaders and members of all farmers organisations we met (CNOP, AOPP, Barahogon, seed producers coop, herders association etc.) use their mobiles to: organise meetings and events; send information to members (vaccination dates; dates of seed certification visits; date and places to collect produce for group sales); receive and reply to technical queries (e.g. banana producers phone Melamine for advice). The organisation of the annual Bourse de cereals in Mali would be much more cost effective if such a “grain market” would be based on voice+internet.

Farmers-innovators and representatives of seed producers in Burkina Faso

Small scale savings schemes using mobile banking

(buy credit) being piloted by CARE in Tamale Ghana.

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Logo of the community radio in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso Ideas for VOICE based services Radio station services Phone in and record questions on a specific topic

Questions are broadcasted and listeners respond by phoning in; it could be live and/or the recording is to put together for a broadcast later.

: use these to make a broadcast in which experts and/or others can answer a selection of the questions. A call-back service can be added when a reply from an expert is available.

Questions and answers are saved and sorted to build a knowledge database that callers can access by their mobile through voice messages in local languages. Phone-in announcements services, this needs to include a viable payment system. Access to externally made broadcasts and/or announcements via mobile phone; broadcast is saved locally and retransmitted for radio stations without internet access. Farmer organisation services Contacting and organising members; leaders send announcements to all or to mailing lists of members, or to members with particular profiles. Member to member: grouped voice messages to mailing list(s) for example fire alerts; wood cutting alerts; meeting announcements and information to group members; for example for pastoralists: information about availability of grazing fields and water; obstructions to livestock corridors; border crossing; health alerts/disease outbreaks etc. ; (for farmers) locust attacks. Organising group purchases (e.g. certified seeds; sesame, Shea butter, honey) and making payments to individual producers who don’t have bank accounts. Market information system linking individual or grouped producers to buyers; from small to large scale (from Bankass milk coop; Tominian sesame producers; nation- wide Shea nut/butter producers (to NTFP in general); to nation-wide cotton producers etc. Voice operated savings and banking services for rural peoples (NB farmers need system for small scale payments when far from rural credit and savings banks or don’t have account). Advice help line; farmer-to-expert and farmer-to-farmer communications and advice services; technical and legal advice.

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Field of Ousseini Kindo in Burkina Faso

NGO services (web based voice services, static website & social networking) Services similar to those of farmer/producer organisation: information to and from leaders and members of community and producer organisations (training, visit and meeting announcements, extension messages, advice helpline etc.). Recordings of information/documents in local languages: best practices, technical advice, laws etc. shared with other development practitioners. Monitoring and Evaluation: map of location and numbers of re-greening farmers, honey producers with contact info etc. Could possibly be extended to include carbon monitoring retorting and verification (MRV) services in collaboration with local research orgs (e.g. in Mali the Rural Economy Institute – IER). “Forest watch” phone in service

: anti-corruption and legal advice.

Other services Use voice and other Web Foundation technologies to enhance Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) which is in place across the (francophone) Sahel. For example by a) improving data collection and b) providing communities with advice on actions to take, adaptive strategies.

7. The road ahead

Technology demos key findings:

the key findings and use cases will lead to the technology pilot and service architecture. Service offering will be related to farmer groups, NGOs and Cooperative groups so that it is more inclusive, and locally relevant content will be added.

Use cases:

we will make a selection of use cases that will be further explored. As of now the two broad categories of use cases are: a) announcements and broadcasts by people and b) the ability to call in live during radio broadcasts by using mobile phones.

Implementation: for the implementation we will develop only baseline functionalities. The mantra is to keep it robust and simple to use and maintain. We will start the pilot on one

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location. During the discussions it emerged that Bandiagra might be an interesting site for the pilot. This radio station is quite stable in terms of infrastructure and resources like electricity, which increases the rate of success of the pilot. Role of ICT developers:

they can act as contractors and hence can act as resource / support staff to activities that will be focusing on radio stations.

Monitoring and Evaluation:

while developing the pilot phase it is important to keep an eye on what we would need to take from the pilot usage data. M&E formats will be designed parallel to the development / implementation phase.

Infrastructure:

Orange will provide the connectivity and telecom infrastructure required for the pilot.

The chief of the Tongo-Beo village presents a goat to Hans Akkermans as a parting gift

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Participants of the road show Prof. dr. Hans Akkermans – VUA Chris Reij – VUA Nana Baah Gyan - VUA Anna Bon – VUA Wendelien Tuyp – VUA Stéphane Boyera – WF Aman Grewal – WF Mary Allen – Sahel Eco Bruno van Moerkerken – Independent film maker on behalf of VUA Aaron Cantrell – student at Oxford University, UK Workshop Locations We covered the following locations conducting workshops and focus group discussions along the way:-

1. Workshop in Bamako, Grand Hotel 2. Visit Radio Segou 3. Visit Radio Moutian,Tominian 4. Visit to regreening fields of farmer Moussa Sangara, near Tominian 5. Visit to Radio Baguiré 6. Workshop in Bandiagara 7. Field trips to farmers in the Yatenga region 8. Workshop in Gourcy, Burkina Faso 9. Workshop in Ouagadougou, hotel Ricardo 10. Team meeting in Ouagadougou, hotel Ricardo 11. Workshop Tamale, Modern City Hotel 12. Field visit in the environment of Bolgatanga: Yameriga and Tongo-Beo 13. Workshop in Bolgatanga, EX-TEE Crystal Hotel

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References [1] W4RA - Web alliance for Regreening in Africa. 2010 http://www.w4ra.org [2] VOICES: VOIce-based Community-cEntric mobile Services for social development 2010. Specific international cooperation actions (SICA) proposal ICT Call 6 FP7-ICT-2009-6. ftp://akmc.biz/ShareSpace/W4RA-VOICES/VOICES_EU-project_proposal-final-subm13April2010.pdf [3] Reij, C., Tappan, G., Smale, M. Agroenvironmental Transformation in the Sahel, Another kind of Green Revolution. IFPRI Discussion paper 2009. http:// www.drylands-group.org/noop/file.php?id=1695 [4] Reij, Chris 2011 African Regreening Initiatives. Blog. http://africa-regreening.blogspot.com/ [5] Akkermans, N.: The Role of ICTS in Knowledge Sharing within Rural Communities in Ghana. Internship MA International Relations. University of Groningen. 2010 ftp://akmc.biz/ShareSpace/W4RA-VOICES/Stageverslag%20Ghana%20Nienke%20Akkermans/The%20Role%20of%20ICTs%20in%20Knowledge%20Sharing%20Within%20Rural%20Communities%20in%20Ghana.pdf [6] B.F Sullivan - Voltastar and Freedomfone: (2010) The use of radio and Interactive Voice Response to reach farmers with agricultural information - Farm Radio International. http://www.mobileactive.org/case-studies/freedom-fone-field [7] World Wide Web Foundation. http://www.webfoundation.org/about/history/