How technology can uplift the world’s poorest people

Strive Masiyiwa has been working together with Melinda Gates in Kenya for the last decade since they set up the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which is headquartered in Nairobi.

“It has been looking at technologies around agriculture; how do we scale up production, considering that smallholder farmers are producing more and getting less, so we came together to see how this could be dealt with,” the Zimbabwean billionaire says. “That also gave me an appetite for philanthropy because there are a lot of things we can do if we come together in partnerships of this nature,” he said on a panel I moderated at the iHub during the launch of a new commission on technology and inclusive development named Pathways for Prosperity.

“We want to make sure that as part of this work, we’re thinking about everybody, not just the people in the capital cities but that family living out in the remote rural village as well,” Mrs Gates explained. “How do we make life better for them, and how can technology underpin them to bring them into the market economy?”

The commission is led by the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is co-chaired by Masiyiwa, Gates and Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, a leading economist who was previously the managing director of the World Bank.

“We see many dimensions of how technology can improve policy and effectiveness in delivering results. For instance, Indonesia spent 20 per cent of our budget on education but the level of satisfaction among the people was not high; it wasn’t a money problem but one of service delivery,” she said. “So some young people built a platform that scales up the most effective teachers so that they can be accessed by students who are not as fortunate to have good teachers in remote areas.”

Former Tanzania Central Bank governor Dr Benno Ndulu is one  of the academic directors of the Pathways for Prosperity commission, alongside Blavatnik professor Stefan Dercon.

“The world has made incredible progress over the past 25 years, with the number of people living in extreme poverty being halved to about 800 million,” said Dercon, the former chief economist of the UK Department for International Development (DfID). “Whether this positive trend continues depends in large part on how we respond to the new forces shaping our world, specifically rapid technological change.”

He argues that developing countries still have serious challenges, not least with business climate, education or even under-investment in energy but sees a major opportunity in adopting technology.

RAPIDLY EVOLVLING LANDSCAPE

The commission has brought together a galaxy of leaders from the private and public sectors as well as from academia “to provide evidence and analysis, as well as concrete policy recommendations to help developing countries’ governments navigate this rapidly evolving landscape”.

Other commissioners are Kamal Bhattacharya, Chief Innovation Oficer of Safaricom; Shanta Devarajan, senior director for development economics at the World Bank; and the Dutch minister for foreign trade and development cooperation,  Sigrid Kaag. Nadiem Makarim, founder and CEO of Indonesia’s “first unicorn” Go-Jek; Maria Ramos, CEO of Barclays Africa Group; Daniela Rus, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT and Shivani Siroya, founder and CEO of the credit services startup Tala. are the others.

As the developed world worries about the impact of emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things on jobs, the team also views them as an alternative roadmap to inclusive development.

For instance, mobile financial services in Kenya such as M-Pesa have lifted 2 per cent of the population out of poverty and significantly reduced the unbanked population.

Prof Ndulu says fighting corruption is one of the “wicked problems” countries in the global south face, but services like social media have allowed citizens to demand accountability and transparency from their governments.

“The other problem in relation to poverty is making sure that we deliver services to the poor in a cost-effective way. In our cash transfer problem in Tanzania, technology helped us reduce the cost by sending the money directly to the recipients.”

There have been other commissions in the development field that launched to great fanfare, only to fizzle out as soon as the pyrotechnics show ended. “Inclusion, Inclusion, inclusion,” is what Melinda Gates hopes Pathways for Prosperity will achieve. “That we think about everybody on this planet and how to include them in this digital revolution so that life gets better for them.”

A day later, Masiyiwa awarded the inaugural two winners of his Kwesé Inc GoGettaz competition Sh10 million each; one of Africa’s most prolific entrepreneurs supporting the next generation of continent’s future business leaders. “We’ve made extraordinary progress in the last 20 years but our growth is not inclusive, it is leaving a lot of people out,” the Econet Group founder and chairman points out. “We have to look to our entrepreneurs as part of the solution.”

Is he right? Send your comments to Larry Madowo at [email protected]

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What does a Chief Administrative Secretary do?

Farida Karoney gave me my first job on television many moons ago so it was nice seeing her nominated as Cabinet Secretary for Lands. She was one of the most powerful women in the media and, if confirmed, will be one of the most influential leaders in the country. She will be more senior than established politicians like Ababu Namwamba, Rachel Shebesh, Patrick Ntutu and Chris Obure.

“I have decided to establish a new position in government, the position of Chief Administrative Secretary in all our ministries,” President Kenyatta announced on Thursday.

Everyone automatically assumed it was the return of assistant ministers. Many lawyers say the president is technically allowed by the Constitution to create a new role but he took a bit of liberty with it. There are also parallels with President Mwai Kibaki’s famously bloated 44-strong Cabinet in the grand coalition government.

What’s probably problematic is that the new chief administrative secretaries are almost all political rejects who supported Jubilee and are now getting rewarded. Failed governors, members of parliament and other busybodies now have fancy titles and salaries in government at the expense of the longsuffering taxpayer. The youth of this country, who are the majority, are still under-represented in this new team.

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During fires, the poor are on their own

It was surreal hearing the National Disaster Management Unit helplessly appealing to  private fire engines to rush to the scene of the inferno in Southlands in Lang’ata on Sunday night. I was speaking to deputy director Pius Masai live on air and he breathlessly implored organisations that operated fire trucks to get to the area as soon as possible since the county’s equipment was already overwhelmed.

Lang’ata MP Nixon Korir told me another informal settlement in his constituency was razed to the ground last year in almost similar circumstances. The desperate residents were scooping sewer water and trying to put out the fire whenever they could. There were no water hydrants nearby so even the trucks that responded to the emergency quickly ran out of the precious commodity.

The anger and sense of loss that night was too deep to put into words but their faces told it all. I can’t imagine what it is like to watch your entire life go up in flames and to be powerless to stop it.

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FEEDBACK: On the plight of the country’s poor

Larry, you are right.  I was terribly insulted after Lily Koros addressed the media and accusing the women who claimed they were raped at KNH of lying. I had a relative admitted to KNH for a month after her baby developed respiratory problems. She had to breastfeed the baby every two hours, day and night.  She was discharged, but her baby was not, so she was accommodated on the ground floor, together with many other women in a similar situation under horrible conditions

The children were in the nursery several floors up, inaccessible by lifts. I accompanied her up there once, climbing the stairs until we got there. I can tell you that the route is deserted during the day, so how about at night?

Meanwhile, another relative had a baby with cancer, whose bill accummulated to Sh100,000.  She was kept in hospital with the baby, being asked to pay what she could, for over a month!

Anne

Its infuriating and disgusting that some people  undergo such ordeals yet the authority in charge still has the audacity to defend itself. The governing systems of this country are falling apart, from health to employment to proper leadership. Leah Nyasuna.

Your article was spot on.  The examples you gave reflect our current social situation. Being poor can sometimes seem like a curse.  I have had the opportunity to live in both worlds.  The experiences enable me to appreciate whatever I  get.Kiogora Yvonne

I totally agree with you that there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor in this country. The rich are not in touch with what happens on the ground  and affects the poor. As you stated, there are reminders everywhere that you are on your own if you don’t have money and your life doesn’t matter.

Steve