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  • Mobile Phones: New Market Tools for the Poor

    Mobile Phones: New Market Tools for the Poor

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Bangladesh’s poor can now buy and sell goods and services with their mobile phones, thanks to a Bangladeshi company’s pioneering mobile phone marketplace. The company, CellBazaar, serves as a useful role model for other Southern entrepreneurs and companies looking to develop and market mobile phone applications for the poor that really help them.

    CellBazaar is simple to use: A user begins the process by texting the word “buy” to short message (SMS) code 3838. They then are offered a list of all the items for sale and scroll through them to find what they want. When they have found something, they send another SMS. In response, an SMS comes back telling the seller’s phone number. And from that point, business is underway between the buyer and the seller.

    “It’s a far more efficient way of finding things. In the past you have to go to newspapers, magazines, and find the best match,” founder Kamal Quadir told MobileActive.

    The categories run from used cars and motorcycles, to new laptops, agricultural products like corn, chickens and fish, educational tutors, jobs, and places for sale and rent.

    Quadir said he had the idea for CellBazaar when he was a graduate student at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

    “I was surrounded by technologically sophisticated people,” he said. “I saw all this technological possibility and heard one top-notch scientist mentioning that a very cheap mobile phone had the same capabilities as a NASA computer in 1968. A country like Bangladesh has 35 million NASA-type computers, and most importantly, they’re in people’s pockets.”

    Quadir saw all this power going to waste, and realized how business was being held back by the lack of information. Absence of market intelligence – or what is available for sale and what is a good price – was a big impediment to more profitable and efficient business transactions.

    Quadir first created the idea at MIT Media Labs and eventually signed a contract with GrameenPhone. CellBazaar launched in July of 2006, and, after a year of beta testing, the team started to actively market the service in August 2007.

    CellBazaar can also be accessed through its website. This has the advantage of making what is a very local market an international market.

    Partnering with Grameen Phone, Bangladesh’s leading telecommunications service provider with more than 18 million subscribers, had its advantages. With 60 percent of the Bangladesh market, “their network is larger than others,” Quadir said.

    Just as web applications like Google and the powerful social networking website Facebook (www.facebook.com) transformed the way people work and socialize, so CellBazaar has needed to encourage a change in behaviour for it to work. At first, people didn’t think they had anything worth selling, or that they could use the text messages to connect to a marketplace.

    “In the past, a rural village person couldn’t even imagine that they wanted to sell something and the whole world would be willing to buy it,” Quadir said. “The biggest challenge we have is people blocking that audacity and courage.”

    To date, over 1 million people have used the service out of a country of 150 million people. “Fundamentally the real issue is about changing people’s patterns,” he said. “But once they learn how to use it, people start doing it really frequently.”

    The CellBazaar experience also shows how critical clever marketing is to business success. The company has been marketed through tastefully designed stickers placed in the windows of cars, taxis and microbuses — ubiquitous and continuous publicity for low cost.

    CellBazaar also has launched educational booklets for four target audiences: villagers and farmers, the elderly and retired, young professionals, and tech-savvy teenagers. There are detailed booklets for those who want step-by-step instructions, as well as short leaflets for customers who want to carry a “quick guide” in their pocket.

    CellBazaar launched its first television campaign during the Muslim festival of Eid in 2007. The ads featured a newspaper seller called Shamsu Hawker, and show how he begins a new career buying and selling used televisions with the help of CellBazaar. The advertisement’s unusual setting on a train, as well as positive imagery of Bangladesh, created a sensation among TV viewers. The character “Shamsu Hawker” has become a nationally recognized icon and popular cultural figure.

    As the service grows, the demographic that uses it has also expanded. “Young people were the early adopters,” said Quadir. “Initially urban people used it more, because we didn’t market very aggressively. Word of mouth spread faster because of the higher concentration of people in cities. But now it has spread to rural areas as well.”

    CellBazaar has won many awards for its innovation in social and economic development.

    The ambitious Quadir wants to expand CellBazaar into East Africa, Eastern Europe, and South Asia. Unlike the web, CellBazaar has to make deals with local mobile phone providers. He can’t just offer the service through the internet. “The Internet belongs to everybody — like highways and like fresh air,” said Quadir. “Mobile networks are privately owned.”

    “So far the operators we have worked with have been very good,” he said. “We are very selective in terms of what operator we work with.” As CellBazaar looks to expand, Quadir is focusing efforts on places that have high mobile penetration rates and low web penetration. “We’re looking at any place that has less internet. No matter how good the application is, having internet and high computer penetration doesn’t help us,” he said. “And mobile is everywhere.”

    The same lesson is being learned around the world. A study of grain traders in Niger found that “cell phones reduce grain price dispersion across markets by a minimum of 6.4 percent and reduce intra-annual price variation by 10 percent.” According to the study, “The primary mechanism by which cell phones affect market-level outcomes appears to be a reduction in search costs, as grain traders operating in markets with cell phone coverage search over a greater number of markets and sell in more markets.”

    Mobile phones are now the fastest growing consumer product in history. Portio Research estimates that between 2007 and 2012 the number of mobile subscribers will grow by another 1.8 billion, mostly in emerging economies like India and China.

    Informa Telecoms and Media estimates mobile networks now cover 90 per cent of the world’s population – 40 per cent of whom are covered but not connected. With such reach, finding new applications for mobile phones that are relevant to the world’s poor and to developing countries is a huge growth area. It is estimated that by 2015, the global mobile phone content market could be worth over US $1 trillion, and basic voice phone calls will account for just 10 per cent of how people use mobile phones.

    Leonard Waverman of the London Business School has estimated that an extra 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country, leads to an extra half a percentage point of growth in GDP per person.

    The experience in the Philippines has shown that the best way to drive fast take up of mobile phone services is to offer something very practical and connected to personal income.

    “The most significant lesson learned so far,” said Shawn Mendes, lead author on the report, The Innovative Use of Mobile Applications in the Philippines: Lessons for Africa, “is that m-Banking, rather than more altruistic applications such as m-Health and m-Education, has delivered the greatest benefits to people in developing countries.”

    Published: October 2008

    Resources

    • SME Toolkit: A free online resource aimed at the South to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access business information, tools, and training services to be able to implement sustainable business practices. Website:http://www.smetoolkit.org/smetoolkit/en
    • Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles: EPROM, part of the Program for Developmental Entrepreneurship within the MIT Design Laboratory, aims to foster mobile phone-related research and entrepreneurship. Key activities include development of new applications for mobile phone users worldwide. Website: http://eprom.mit.edu/
    • Textually.org: a very inspiring website profiling loads of innovations with mobile phones in the developing world. 
      Website:http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/cat_mobile_phone_projects_thir
    • The innovative use of mobile applications in the Philippines Lessons for Africa: A paper from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) on mobile phone innovation. Website:http://www.sida.se/sida/jsp/sida.jsp?d=118&a=33306&language=en

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/04/30/crowdsourcing-mobile-phones-to-make-the-poor-money/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/05/01/diy-solution-charges-mobile-phones-with-batteries/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/09/entrepreneurs-use-mobiles-and-it-to-tackle-indian-traffic-gridlock/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/06/15/indian-mobile-phone-application-innovators-empower-citizens/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/01/innovative-mobile-phone-applications-storm-south/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/20/kenya-reaches-mobile-phone-banking-landmark/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/27/kenyan-mobile-phone-innovations/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/10/mobile-applications-market-opportunities-for-south/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/03/08/mobile-phone-microscopes-to-revolutionize-health-diagnostics/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/04/06/mobile-phone-peacekeeping/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/12/mobile-phone-shopping-to-create-efficient-markets-across-borders/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/20/mobile-phones-bring-the-next-wave-of-new-ideas-from-the-south/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/20/mobile-phones-engineering-souths-next-generation-of-entrepreneurs/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/09/a-new-mobile-phone-aimed-at-the-poor/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/09/ring-tones-and-mobile-phone-downloads-are-generating-income-for-local-musicians-in-africa/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-1/

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Somali Killings Reveal Ugly Side Of Elite Regiment

    Somali Killings Reveal Ugly Side Of Elite Regiment

    By David South

    Now Magazine (Toronto, Canada), May 6-12, 1993

    Canada is touted around the world for its commitment to the ideals of peacekeeping. But something went seriously wrong with the Canadian Airborne Regiment at Belet Huen in Somalia.

    Since the revelation of the March 16 shooting death of Somali civilian Shidane Omar Aroni at the hands of members of the regiment, three more killings of civilians by Canadian troops have come to light. Two of the deaths, including Aroni’s, are being investigated internally by the military, while others are subject to a government-ordered inquiry.

    Military watchers say the problem permeating the Canadian Armed Forces’ approach to peacekeeping goes beyond the inappropriate behaviour of a few gung-ho members of the airborne.

    Warning ignored

    They say the department of national defence has ignored the warnings of the United Nations and its own internal papers regarding the ever more complex duties of international peacemaking and peacekeeping. The Canadian forces and other coaltion partners, they say, are playing with fire in Somalia by neglecting to prepare troops with the skills they need in negotiation, conflict resolution and cultural sensitivity.

    And they point out that the assigning of peacekeeping duties to the Canadian airborne – an elite force with a fearsome reputation – illuminates everything that is wrong with the current approach.

    “The opposition is calling for the airborne to be dismantled, but they are prepared for high-intensity combat,” says defence consultant Peter Langille. “It’s just a dumb decision – somebody used them for the wrong thing.”

    “The opposition is calling for the airborne to be dismantled, but they are prepared for high-intensity combat,” says defence consultant Peter Langille. “It’s just a dumb decision – somebody used them for the wrong thing.”

    If Canadian personnel were properly trained, the incidents at Belet Huen would not have happened, says Gideon Forman of the Canadian Peace Alliance.

    “Peacekeeping is a special skill that requires courses in non-violent conflict resolution and negotiation. A peacekeeping training centre – which the Canadian Forces pooh-pooh – would be very useful.”

    Indeed, the unfolding of the horrifying drama in Belet Huen posed acutely difficult problems for army personnel. It took a small-town journalist on a press junket intended to show off the work of the airborne to force the army to go public with the death of Aroni.

    Jim Day of the Pembroke Observer, located near the airborne’s home base at CFB Petawawa, spotted a commotion over the attempted suicide of master corporal Clayton Matchee, one of the soldiers arrested in the death.

    It wasn’t until March 31, two weeks after an internal military investigation had begun, that the military admitted to the investigation.

    Day says watching the troops in Somalia made it clear there was a mismatch between the personnel and the mission.

    “They are trained for a combative role. They’re considered the cream of the crop, very tough physically. They want to use their training, as opposed to being trained for combat in rugged exercises and then ending up handing out water.

    “What hit me quite strongly down in the camp was how they spent their leisure time. I watched them set up a spider fight. They had such intensity – they were watching these two spiders devour each other for 20 or 25 minutes, coaching them along, pumping their arms in the air and rooting and screaming.”

    Creates aggression

    Observers who know the regiment say the training is meant to create extremely aggressive behaviour while reinforcing elite status. Through “jump school” – three weeks of punishing training where subjects drop from planes – soldiers experience exhilarating highs and terrifying lows.

    Anecdotes abound about the secretive and violent behaviour of the regiment.

    “There’s a good deal of resentment,” says Dave Henderson, who puts together a weekly news infomercial called Base Petawawa Journal for Ottawa’s CHRO TV. “A lot of the other soldiers on the base shun them. Their nickname in some quarters is ‘stillborne.’

    “I know from people in other military outfits that when you go up against the airborne, there is a fear factor,” says Langille, whose company Common Security Consultants, has lobbied the government to change peacekeeping training.

    “In exercises where the airborne take over a base or something, if they catch you, they bet the shit out of you. It’s not surprising they got carried away in an ugly environment.”

    Frustrating pace

    Nor is it strange that the regiment chafed at the pace of the Somalian daily round. “The soldiers believe the Somalis are very slow in their ways,” says Day. “They’re used to ‘boom, boom.’ Whatever it is they do, even if it’s building a trench or putting up a fence, they are very quick about it.”

    But the military argues that the best preparation for peacemaking and peacekeeping duties is the general combat training every soldier receives.

    “The best peacekeeper is a well-trained soldier,” says veteran peacekeeper colonel Sean Henry of the Conference of Defence Associations.

    “When you look at the make-up of the coalition force in Somalia, you find that just about every other nation has contributed either airborne troops or special troops, simply because they wanted a well-trained unit at short notice.”

    “When you look at the make-up of the coalition force in Somalia, you find that just about every other nation has contributed either airborne troops or special troops, simply because they wanted a well-trained unit at short notice.”

    Henry thinks those who argue for peacekeeping training are missing the essence of the armed forces’ mandate. “It’s counter-productive. You might as well forget about the armed forces and sign up a bunch of social workers.”

    Does the UN know what it’s doing?

    Now Magazine (Toronto, Canada), July 22-28, 1993. This incident was the basis of the 2001 film Black Hawk Down. 

    By David South

    Now Magazine (Toronto, Canada), July 22-28, 1993

    The United Nations’ bloody hunt for elusive Mogadishu warlord general Mohamed Farah Aideed has many observers wondering whether the world body is making up the rules as it goes along.

    Some critics, such as George Cram of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, an influential umbrella group for Canadian non-governmental organizations of NGOs, question if the obsession with Aideed isn’t just burying the UN in a deeper image problem with the Third World.

    Critics point to the fallout of growing resentment from the July 12 attack on Aideed’s compound – killing more than 70 civilians – boding ill for a peaceful reconstruction of Somali society.

    The fact that among those killed within the compound were clan elders who were negotiating a peace has upset Somalis even more, says Cram, a Horn of Africa researcher.

    “The UN has lost its credibility, its moral authority, lost its blue-beret neutrality,” says Cram bluntly.

    The degree to which Aideed should be the main focus of current UN actions has some relief agencies scratching their heads. Aideed has become Somalian bogey man number one with UNOSOM’s (United Nations Operations in Somalia) head, US Admiral Johnathon Howe. He has placed a $25,000 price on Aideed for an arrest.

    “I don’t recall the UN ever going out and actually attempting to arrest individuals – they certainly haven’t done it in other conflict zones,” says reverend David Hardy of Saskatoon-based Lutheran Relief, who has organized relief flights into Somalia.

    Cambodian example

    He cites the example of Cambodia, where the UN brokered a controversial peace with those purveyors of the genocidal killing fields, the Khmer Rouge, in order to secure free elections.

    David Isenverg of the Center for Defense Information, a liberal Washington-based think tank, worries that doggedly going after Aideed while ignoring the other factions will paint the UN as siding with one faction over another.

    “The protracted effect is to turn the US and UN into partisans to the conflict.”

    Hardy believes Aideed, who is adept at seeing which way the wind blows, has inflated his stature as an opponent of the UN as foreign invader.

    Then there are other criticisms. Some observers wonder whether the UN is too proud or too blind, or simple oblivious when it comes to seeking advice from the locals it went in to protect.

    Even Canada, while supporting the UN’s military effort since Aideed “is obstructing relief supplies,” believes that national reconciliation should be a main focus, says external affairs spokesperson Rodney Moore.

    He says Canada continues to urge the UN to move quickly on national reconciliation, bringing together women’s groups, clan elders and other non-warlord groups.

    “One of the areas where the UN operation went wrong is the tendency to deal with the ‘superpowers’ of Somalia while ignoring groups like women’s collectives,” says World Visions’ Philip Maher, who has just returned from Somalia.

    “Part of the problem is misunderstanding,” Maher says. “The UN hasn’t done a great job of telling Somalis what they are doing.”

    Many point to the peaceful north, where the as yet internationally unrecognized Somaliland offers a successful model, combining women’s groups and elders to wrest control.

    Update: War crimes: former minister reveals why Canada disbanded its special airborne force after scandal: The drastic step was judged the best way to fix systemic problems after an affair similar to allegations against Australian forces in Afghanistan (Wed 2 Dec 2020)

    Further reading: 

    Canada evolves from peacekeeper to war-fighter by A. Walter Dorn, The Toronto Star, Dec. 21, 2013

    IS CANADA A NATION OF WARRIORS OR PEACEKEEPERS? HOW TO REFOCUS ON UNITED NATIONS PEACE OPERATIONS by Maj M.C.C. Lafortune, Canadian Forces College, 2016-2017

    Law in Times of Crisis: Emergency Powers in Theory and Practice by Oren Gross and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin  (2006)

    Manitoba Law Journal: The New Emergencies Act: Four Times the War Measures Act, 1991 CanLIIDocs 129

    Doug Ford declared a state of emergency. Should Justin Trudeau do the same? 

    October 1970 by Louis Hamelin (Publisher: House of Anansi, 2013). “October 1970 is a thrilling fictional account of the events that shaped one of the most volatile moments in recent history.”

    Trudeau’s Darkest Hour: War Measures in Time of Peace, October 1970 Editors: Guy Bouthillier, Édouard Cloutier (2010)

    Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety by Ian McKay, Jamie Swift (2012)

    Warriors Or Peacekeepers? Building Military Cultural Competence, Editors: Kjetil Enstad, Paula Holmes-Eber (2020)

    Canadian Peacekeeping Is Under the Gun by Craig Turner, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 1, 1996

    My journalism:

    1992

    Top Reporters Offer Military Media Handling Tips

    1993

    Continental Drift And Military Complexities

    Somali Killings Reveal Ugly Side Of Elite Regiment

    Does the UN know what it’s doing?

    Peaceniks Questioning Air-Raid Strategy In Bosnia

    1996

    State Of Decay: Haiti Turns To Free-Market Economics And The UN To Save Itself

    U.S. Elections Update: Clinton is using Canada to keep control of Haiti

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Mongolia Looks to Become Asian IT Leader

    Mongolia Looks to Become Asian IT Leader

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    A Mongolian information technology company founded by a woman has shown a way to thrive in the country’s often-chaotic economic environment. With the global economic crisis moving into its third year, Intec’s strategies to survive and thrive offer lessons for other IT start-ups in the South.

    While the global economy’s prospects are still uncertain, on the positive side, many believe the best place to be is in emerging economies like Mongolia, with some foreseeing healthy growth for the next 20 to 30 years. Mongolia’s information technology entrepreneurs are looking to prove this is the case. The country has made great strides in improving e-government – jumping from 82nd place to 53rd in the UN e-government survey 2010 (http://www2.unpan.org/egovkb/global_reports/10report.htm) – and is now aiming to become an Asian software and IT services outsourcing powerhouse.

    A Northeast Asian nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia) sandwiched between Russia and fast-growing China, Mongolia grapples with the combination of a large territory, a small population (2,641,216) and limited transport infrastructure connecting it to its neighbours. Historically, it is a nomadic nation with a strong animal herding tradition. But during the Communist period, it industrialized and became more urban. After the collapse of Communism at the beginning of the 1990s, the country experienced a terrible economic and social crisis, with rapidly rising poverty rates and high unemployment.

    Despite its infrastructure obstacles, Mongolia has been able to develop a lively information technology sector, often with the assistance of the United Nations. During the late 1990s, as the internet revolution exploded, the UN led on supporting infrastructure, skills development, innovation and legislation.

    Information technology consulting and services company Intec (www.itconsulting.mn) , founded in 2004, has been able to thrive through the global economy’s ups and downs by identifying an under-serviced niche as a consulting, research and training company. Intec now has five full-time staff and works with a broad network of Mongolian and international consultants.

    As is often the case with new businesses, Intec initially found that many doors were closed to start-up enterprises.

    “The major challenges which I faced were to make people understand about the consulting services,” said Intec’s founder, Lkhagvasuren Ariunaa. “The consulting services concept was new to Mongolia and Mongolians at that time and not many organizations were willing to work with consulting services. The international and donor organizations were keen to work with consulting services companies; however, they were requiring companies to have a list of successfully implemented projects, which was difficult for a new starter like Intec.

    “For example, registering with the Asian Development Bank consulting services database required companies to be operational for at least three years. So, we got registered with ADB consulting services database only in 2008. Meanwhile, personal connections and communication skills helped to find jobs and opportunities for Intec.”

    Ariunaa had worked for the Soros Foundation (http://www.soros.org/) but it closed its offices in Mongolia in 2004. Faced with unemployment, Ariunaa went about seeing what she could do next: a dilemma many people face in today’s economy.

    “It took me about eight months to develop a business plan and directions of operation of the company. I started in a big room at the national information technology park building with one table, chair and computer.

    “It has been quite challenging years for bringing a company to the market and finding niches for us. We have franchised the Indian Aptech WorldWide Training center (http://www.aptech-worldwide.com) in Mongolia – may be one of the few franchising businesses in Mongolia. Currently that center is now a separate entity/company and it has over 20 plus faculty staff and over 300 students.”

    Ariunaa had been active in the sector for over 10 years, but while knowing many of the players and organizations, she spent time researching what niche Intec could fill in the marketplace.

    “Looking at the ICT market, there were quite a number of internet service providers, mobile phone operators, a few companies started developing software applications, and services etc. However, there were only two to three consulting companies in the ICT sector which to my knowledge at that time were providing consulting services, and still there was a room for Intec.”

    Intec then focused on three areas: consulting services, training and skills, and research. Intec found they were pioneering a new concept in Mongolia.

    Intec’s first contract was a job with the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin in the United States to organize a three week course for American students to learn about the digital divide in Mongolia. But the global economic crisis hit Mongolia hard in 2009.

    “It was challenging to survive and continue working the same way,” Ariunaa said. “There were few ICT-related jobs in Mongolia at that time, and one of our major clients left Mongolia and we had to find other clients in the market.

    “One of the ways of approaching this was that we were not asking for fees, instead we would have a barter agreement – we will deliver them services and they will provide some services for us. For the company itself, we needed to find ways of financing and covering costs for renting of premises, paying salaries for staff on time, paying taxes and other expenses.”

    The environment in Mongolia is being helped by the Information and Communications Technology and Post Authority (ICTPA) of Mongolia (http://www.ictpa.gov.mn) , which has been driving forward an e-Mongolia master plan. With 16 objectives, it ambitiously seeks to place Mongolia in the top five of Asian IT nations, competing with South Korea, Singapore, Japan and China.

    Ariunaa believes Mongolia has many competitive advantages. “Mongolia is known for a high-literacy rate and math-oriented training and education, and ICT specialists are targeting to become a software outsourcing country for other countries. Another advantage of Mongolians is that they can easily learn other languages: we are fluent in Russian, English, Japanese, Korean, German and we believe that with these two major advantages, we will be able to do a good job with outsourcing of software development.”

    While men still dominate the ICT sector in Mongolia, Ariunaa has not found being a woman a disadvantage. “In Mongolia, as gender specialists say, there is a reverse gender situation. Women are educated, well-recognized and well-respected. There were situations, when I was the only women participant in the meeting with about 20 men. But I never felt somewhat discriminated or mis-treated and I think that’s the overall situation towards gender in Mongolia.”

    Intec’s success working with Aptech WorldWide Training’s franchising contract brought many advantages for a start-up. “It’s a faster way to do things, and you don’t have to re-invent the wheel.”

    As a Mongolian company, Intec has found it best to play to its local strengths. “National companies have knowledge, expertise and experience of local situations, know players and understand about legal, regulatory matters. … partnership or cooperation are one of the means of cooperating with big global players.”

    Intec’s success is also down to Ariunaa’s enthusiasm: “It’s fun and I love doing it – just usually do not have enough time!”

    Published: July 2010

    Resources

    1)  Advice on starting a business and succeeding in tough economic times. Website:http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1073858805

    2) Changing Dynamics of Global Computer Software and Services Industry: Implications for Developing Countries: A report from UNCTAD on how computer software can become the most internationally dispersed high-tech industry. Website:http://www.unctad.org/templates/webflyer.asp?docid=1913&intitemid=2529&lang=1

    3) Afrinnovator: Is about telling the stories of African start-ups, African innovation, African made technology, African tech entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. Their mission is to ‘Put Africa on the Map’ by covering these kinds of stories from all over Africa. As their website says, “if we don’t tell our own story, who will tell it for us?” Website:http://afrinnovator.com

    4) TechMasai: Pan-African start-up news and reviews. Website: www.techmasai.com

    5) Ger Magazine Project: Mongolia’s first online magazine pioneered communicating on the web. Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ger_magazine

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    Launched in 1997 in a major crisis, the UN Mongolia Development Portal (www.un-mongolia.mn) became the country’s largest online bilingual publisher and an award-winning pioneer of web content. It proved Mongolia had the potential to innovate in digital.
    Story featured in the UN E-Government Knowledgebase and E-Government Survey in Media.
    Posted in 2010 on the Unuudur.com (“The latest news of Mongolia in the world”) website.
    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Top Reporters Offer Military Media Handling Tips

    Top Reporters Offer Military Media Handling Tips

    Ryerson’s course on handling media has raised eyebrows

    By David South

    Now Magazine (Toronto, Canada), November 12-18, 1992

    The whimsical Certificate of Military Achievement hanging in the offices of the Ryersonian newspaper at Ryerson journalism school is testament to the warm relationship between the armed forces and one of Canada’s top journalism schools.

    But a two-month crash course in journalism for military public affairs officers hosted by Ryerson this summer has left a bad taste in the mouths of some participants and critics.

    The course, which involved 18 soldiers, included two weeks of classes in each of print, radio and TV journalism, wrapping up with two weeks of “crisis management” training. The 60 instructures included such prominent journalists as Ann Medina and Pamela Wallin.

    According to an administration newsletter, the course netted Ryerson more than $350,000. Organizers say the course was merely an exercise in familiarizing soldiers with the needs of working journalists. But given the often conflicting roles of the military and the media, some fear journalistic ethics may have taken some collateral damage.

    “The course had nothing to do with national defence or the armed forces,” says course teacher and organizer Shelley Robertson. “They just wanted to understand the roles of journalists from the other side. The military didn’t ask us to teach what we teach our students.”

    Robertson says the course also benefited the participating journalists by giving them contacts in the military.

    But according to media critic Barrie Zwicker, the exercise blurs what should be the distinctly different interests of journalists and the military. “It’s similar to press and politicians. By getting close to the politician, journalists can get information they couldn’t normally obtain. The negative side is that the media can get sucked in and lose a larger perspective. The same tensions exist with covering the military.

    Managing media

    “It’s up to the media to break the rules and try and get the story. The military always wants to hide its victims. If a Ryerson journalist strikes up a friendship with a public affairs officer, will the reporter be true to their journalistic tradition?”

    Colloquially known as spin doctors, hype-meisters and flak catchers, public affairs officers perform much the same tasks in the military as their civilian counterparts in industry and government – including managing information that gets to the public or media.

    In the past, Canadian soldiers had to go to the US for special training at the Defense Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison. But, according to Robertson, the armed forces were looking for a Canadian spin.

    With 4,600 Canadian peacekeepers now stationed around the world, including a contingent in the dangerous and volatile former Yugoslav republics, the chances for conflict – and casualties – have increased.

    Lieutenant-commander Glen Chamberlain, who helped coordinate the course, says the military’s increased profile means that the forces have to become more adept at media relations. “There is a great desire among Canadians to know what troops on peacekeeping duties are up to. We have a wonderful story to tell.”

    Chamberlain says he works on journalists’ behalf with stubborn military commanders. “The armed forces are finding there is a real benefit to having specialized PA officers. We want to help journalists to tell our story well.”

    The crisis management section of the course offered participants a hands-on approach to managing journalists. The officers were presented with two scenarios – a murder at Moss Park armoury and a highway helicopter crash – and then practised handling a group of journalists investigating the events.

    Course lecturer Kevin Donovan, who covered the Gulf war for the Toronto Star, remembers the effectiveness and sophistication of PA officers in the field.

    “When I was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, I walked into a hotel and on the wall were pool reports – news briefs written by US military public affairs officers – that journalists were encouraged to use for stories. There were some journalists going out into the field to cover stories, but a huge number just sat in this beautiful hotel.”

    “Canadian journalists are ignorant of the military and could do with getting closer. You almost never find a full-time journalist in Canada who knows anything about them. The more you know about the military, the less you will be manipulated.”

    Stop information

    Donovan feels uncomfortable about teaching on the course.

    “I was asked by Ryerson to give a talk on my experiences in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq,” he says. “My initial reaction was no. I hate the existance of public affairs people with a passion. Their job is to stop information.

    “I’m uncomfortable with Ryerson being hired by the department of national defence. One officer in the course got very upset when I told them to make contacts with the media and leak stories.”

    Course organizer Clive Vanderburgh admits organizers had concerns about conflicts between the role of journalists and military officers. “There was a lot of discussion concerning the potential for conflict – especially that the people hired to teach might think they were there to help the department of national defence to avoid the media

    “But we were trying to give a general understanding of the media’s needs. We didn’t sell the country down the drain.”

    Another teacher was Robert Fulford, the well-known writer and lecturer on journalistic ethics. “I don’t have a problem with Ryerson teaching the military,” says Fulford. “It’s a way of spreading journalistic technique to people in the DND. It seems to be a natural extension of the work of Ryerson.

    “Canadian journalists are ignorant of the military and could do with getting closer. You almost never find a full-time journalist in Canada who knows anything about them. The more you know about the military, the less you will be manipulated.”

    But Gideon Forman, coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance, fears Ryerson may be helping the military mislead the public.

    “Why do these guys practise handling the media so much of there’s nothing to hide? This is just better packaging for the military so they can get what they want from the public.

    “I have problems with public money being spent teaching the military to be more effective with the media, while other organizations have their budgets cut or eliminated.

    “Is there a similar program for food banks or women’s shelters?”

    Note on story context: This story was researched and written after two key events involving Canada’s military: the first Gulf War from 1990-1991; and the Oka Crisis in 1990, where the Canadian Armed Forces confronted an armed group of Mohawk “Warriors” in Oka, Quebec.

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