Vol. VI No. 5
May 2008
The first monthly magazine on ICT4D
Climate Change: An overview Shared responsibility for climate control
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India Information for development
w w w. i 4 d o n l i n e . n e t
Equipping ourselves better
Climatic Change and Climate Impacts (C3I), University of Geneva, Switzerland
ISSN 0972 - 804X
Climate Change and ICTs
Weather events and changing climate
knowledge for change
Turn to page 32 and stand a chance to WIN a HCL Leaptop!
INDIA
2008 29-31 July 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, INDIA India is home to one of the largest numbers of ICT4D projects in the world. Most of them are ‘telecentre’ initiatives in rural contexts, based on public access to technology approach. Rural telecentre projects exploring the contextual use of new ICTs hold great promise, not only in areas of health, education, public service delivery, social security services and livelihoods but also in greater political participation, stimulating local knowledge systems, developing empowering social networks and encouraging a vibrant local media. Critiques argue that most of these initiatives, including huge government-sponsored ones, have proceeded without a critical analysis of the social, economic and developmental objectives sought to be achieved in 'bridging the digital divide', and have been based on assumptions that ignore the social and economic complexities involved in this process. The Indian Telecentre Forum 2008 (ITF 2008), fifth in the series of Telecentre Forums organised by CSDMS, will provide a platform for all key stakeholders representing the government, the private sector, the civil society, and funding agencies to join and discuss the achievements, challenges and the progress in the telecentre movement. . The forum will create a common ground for equitable learning which will facilitate a process of overall development of the country. It will shape the way forward for the telecentre movement within India, and make it an example for the world to learn from.
Key themes
Who will attend
• A Close Examination of Telecentre Movement in India
•
Telecentre Practitioners and Telecentre Leaders
• Demystifying Social Enterprise Model
•
Technology Solution Providers
• Discussions on Achieving Balance between Financial and Social Objectives
•
Social Investors
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Researchers and Project Implementers
• Asian Telecentre Leaders Knowledge Sharing Session
•
Private Sector Investors
• The Need of New Technologies and Innovations in the Areas of Content and Connectivity
•
Government Implementers
•
Funding Agencies
• Upgrading the Skills of the Grassroots Managers
•
Content Developers and Consultants
• Examining the Role of NGOs in Common Services Centres Programme
•
Community Mobilisers
• Will Mobile Phones Take Over Telecentres?
Call for Papers!
Expected outcomes • • • • •
Creating a synergy among different telecentre practices Knowledge exchange among Asian telecentre leaders Better understanding of social enterprise model Strategies to reach out the bottom of the pyramid Identifying innovative practices in the areas of content generation and connectivity
Submit 400 word abstract by 30 April 2008, at www.eINDIA.net.in/abstract
Supporting Partner
telecentre.org is a global community of people and organizations committed to increasing the social and economic impact of grassroots telecentres. The founding investors include Canada’s International Development Research Centre, Microsoft, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.The association will bring a knowledge sharing session for Asian telecentre leaders, an open conclave of service centre agencies, State IT secretaries and a high level delegation from Africa and telecentre.org village, at eINDIA2008.
www.eINDIA.net.in/telecentreforum Contact Person: Vignesh Sornamohan: Mobile No: +91-9999654458, Email: ITF@eINDIA.net.in
Contents
Vol. VI No. 5
Features 5
Editorial
6
Climate Change: An overview
The change we often disown
May 2008
Mail box Rendezvous 27
A Special Online Forum, 10-28 March 2008, Bangladesh
et
online.n
info@i4d
ICT potentials in agriculture Shared responsibility for climate control Jayalakshmi Chittoor
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The Energy And Resources Institute (TERI), India Equipping ourselves better Vivek Kumar
17
30
Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI), University of Oxford, UK Power management in networked desktops Daniel Curtis, Howard Noble
35
39
Conference on Impact of ICT on Aging Workforce, 17th April 2008, Mumbai, India Including the aged in mainstream workforce
41
OneWorld South Asia (OWSA), India Climate justice for the realisation of MDGs Naimur Rahman
Symposium on ICTS and Climate Change,15-16 April 2008, Kyoto, Japan Revisiting the Kyoto protocol
Climatic Change and Climate Impacts (C3I), University of Geneva, Switzerland Weather events and changing climate Martin Beniston
19
37
Confrence on Civil Society Report on Climate Change, 2nd April 2008, New Delhi, India Climate change: An alternate perspective
Columns 42
Bytes for All
44
Books received
ICTs and climate change Building partnerships: Addressing change Sani Malam Karami
•
Climate Change and Developing Countries
•
Open Access to Knowledge and Information: Scholarly Literature and Digital Library Initiatives – the South Asian Scenario
•
Civil Society Report on Climate Change
Interview 11
Andrew Sors The cooperation ahead
23 29-31 July 2008
45
What’s on
46
In Fact Responding to climate change
Pragati Maidan, New Delhi
News 10
World News
21
e-Agriculture News
34
India News
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Part I: Introduction to Internet Governance Issues
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Internet Governance i4d | May 2008
Editorial The change we often disown
ADVISORY BOARD M P Narayanan, Chairman, i4d Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia Karl Harmsen United Nations University Kenneth Keniston Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Mohammed Yunus Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Nagy Hanna e-Leadership Academy, University of Maryland, USA Richard Fuchs IDRC, Singapore Rinalia Abdul Rahim Global Knowledge Partnership, Malaysia Walter Fust Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland Wijayananda Jayaweera UNESCO, France EDITORIAL BOARD Akhtar Badshah, Frederick Noronha GROUP DIRECTORS Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar
The dynamics of change is inherent in every form of matter. From a conventional point of view, climate change refers to variability in average weather over a substantial period of time. Average weather includes atmospheric temperature, precipitation patterns, wind cycles, ocean tides etc. The causes behind this change may be anything from intense solar radiation, to celestial bodies hitting the earth’s surface to human-driven changes. The present deliberations and concerns on climate change is primarily centred around a framework that focuses on human-driven change events and their bearing on present-day society. The human dimension is undeniably quintessential to the entire discourse on climate change. This is because the climate hazards and other climate justice issues are attributed to human functions. The urge for modernisation has driven human beings to develop technology-enabled and technology-related platforms, devices and mechanisms. The human-driven machine society creates a lot of scientific and not-so-scientific waste products. This apart, the present day machine society banks on industries that emit insurmountable amounts of toxic gases including greenhouse gases. Human beings also use a number of refrigerants and air conditioners that emit a lot of CFC’s that deplete the ozone layer.
EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Programme Co-ordinator Jayalakshmi Chittoor Content Editor Rajat Banerjee Sr. Research Associate Ritu Srivastava, Ajitha Saravanan Sr. Graphic Designer Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Graphic Designers Om Prakash Thakur, Shyam Kishore, Chandrakesh Bihari Lal (James) Web Programmer Zia Salahuddin i4d G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA, UP, 201 301, India Phone +91 120 250 2181-85 Fax +91 120 250 0060 Email info@i4donline.net Web www.i4donline.net Printed at R P Printers, Noida, India i4d is a monthly publication. It is intended for those interested and involved in the use of Information and Commnication Technologies for development of underserved communities. It is hoped that it will serve to foster a growing network by keeping the community up to date on many activities in this wide and exciting field. i4d does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors. i4d is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.
Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2008 Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
The present day policies and initiatives of UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) do focus more on the non-climate factors. International treaties like UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) also recognise climate change to be more human-driven and consider greenhouse gas emissions as the major reason behind the change. The Kyoto protocol speaks about combating emission effects mainly with the help of low-emission technologies, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and carbon trading. The recently concluded Bangkok conference referred to boosting renewable energy, reducing deforestation and improving energy efficiency to tackle the issue of climate change. But who bears the onus of change impact? The underprivileged sections of the developing nations are indeed bearing the brunt of climate impact. Neither are they equipped enough to prefigure meteorological changes in their weather nor do they have the capacity to mitigate the impact caused by climate hazards. There are no specific early warning systems to forecast natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, etc. In this issue, we have attempted to know what are the long-term and short-term implications of climate change, who contributes to climate change and in what form, who owns it and who disowns, whether there are any mechanisms to measure change events, what are the justice issues and how the same are to be solved etc. We have also tried to investigate whether integrated tools of information and communication can provide viable solutions to address climate change.
i4d is supported by:
Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in
December 2007 | www.i4donline.net
5
CLIMATE CHANGE: AN OVERVIEW
Shared responsibility for climate control Former US Vice President Al Gore, in 2006, authored best seller “An Inconvenient Trust” on the threats and solutions to global warming. A top documentary film, of the same title, won the Academy award, for the best documentary feature and best original song soon after. The story of Climate Change, the pace of which accelerates due to anthropogenic causes, has been the concern of many scientists, researchers, and countries, especially those that confront the consequences sooner than others.
IPCC and UNFCCC The global interest and movement to take this issue on the global agenda led to the formation of the IPCC. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change established in 1988 by World Meteorological Organisation and United Nations Environment Programme has since led a number of deliberations and consultations to get a better understanding of the causes, impacts, and mitigation strategies. More public awareness and the recognition by the Nobel Committee last year of the two decades of work done by IPCC leading to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, has helped pitch the agenda of Climate Change high on research and action globally. The world is increasingly thirsty for accurate and comprehensible information on climate change. IPCC seems to have met this challenge in its Fourth Assessment report, providing a wealth of carefully documented information on the nature of contemporary and past climate change data and analysis, together with some model-based looks at the future. It is not without controversy, though given that uncertainties and modelling techniques are subject to international and contradicting research debates, particularly
6
with respect to the sea level rise issues. T h e Un i t e d N a t i o n s has steered the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, www. unfccc.int), which enjoys near universal ratification by 192 countries including India. It sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognises that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The UNFCCC, hereinafter referred as the Convention, came into force on 21 March 1994. Un d e r t h e C o n ve n t i o n , governments: • Gather and share information on greenhouse gas emissions, national policies and best practices • Launch national strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to expected impacts, including the provision of financial and technological support to developing countries • Co-operate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change • The Article One of the UNFCCC Convention provides various definitions relating to climate change.
Cumulative effect of carbon dioxide accumulation Since energy is a key issue for development of nations, use of non-renewable energy sources like coal, which in India will continue to be an important resource, can
be an area of concern. It is important to note that India, by its own commitment, is focusing its attention on clean technology, and promotes the development of non-conventional or renewable energy sources. Greenhouse gases including water vapour and carbon dioxide create a heating condition, as the heat comes down, it tends to heat up the earth. If the carbon dioxide increases rapidly there is an in-equilibrium created. It is important to understand that it is not the annual emission that is of relevance, but it collection of gases. Over the last 150 years since mid 19th century from the peak of industrialisation, i4d | May 2008
the carbon dioxide emitted then is still present in the atmosphere, creating a stock of gases. Those developed countries and regions, which industrialised rapidly in that period of time, have been the contributors of the gases. The carbon dioxide levels have risen from 279 parts per million (ppm) since 1850 to the current rates of about 379 ppm (over a period of 150 years). This is an annual increase of about 1-1.5 ppm. As developing nations march towards industrialisation, they too contribute. India, for example, contributes only 2% of the carbon dioxide, while the US contributes 24%. Countries like America, Germany, UK and Japan still contribute very high proportion of the carbon dioxide. India and China by 2100 AD are likely to go up the stock to 11 and 12 percent respectively. Thus, there is a clear-cut differentiation between industrialised and non-industrialised countries. The development imperatives are thus clear. Countries choosing the development pathway have responsibilities. Developed countries must take the lead. As developing nations put economic, social development and poverty reduction high on their priority, they will also need to tread the pathway of development responsibly. The prediction of climate change due to human activities began with a prediction made by the Swedish chemist, Svante Arrhenius, in 1896. Arrhenius took note of the industrial revolution then getting underway and realized that the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere was increasing. Moreover, he believed carbon dioxide concentrations would continue to increase as the world’s consumption of fossil fuels, particularly coal, increased ever more rapidly. His understanding of the role of carbon dioxide in heating Earth, even at that early date, led him to predict that if atmospheric carbon dioxide doubled, Earth would become several degrees warmer. However, little attention was paid to what must have been seen to be a rather far-out prediction that had no apparent consequence for people living at that time. May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
Flexible route for effective implementation The International Treaty is at the stage of implementation. India is expected to contribute about 1000 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050, reaching a proportion of 4%-5% of the global carbon emissions. While India takes the pathway of economic and scientific development, the focus obviously is on efficiency. When choosing a path of sustainable development, one must bear in mind that the per capita emission by India never exceeds the per capita emission by any developed country. When small enterprises have to be competing globally in an increasingly globalised world, they have to embark on energy efficiency strategies and use innovative solutions to sustain themselves. For such a development strategy to take force, developing countries will need both technical and financial assistance from developed nations. Between 2008-2012, the conference of parties decided that developed nations will work to reduce their emissions (each country has its own targets) adding to a total 5% of the green house gases against the baseline year of 1990. These strategies will come into force and the Kyoto Protocol, which was negotiated after intense two and half years of deliberations was adopted in February 1997, and came into force in 2005. In order to give the parties a certain degree of flexibility in meeting their emission reduction targets, the Kyoto Protocol developed three innovative mechanisms - Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). These so-called ‘market-based mechanisms’ allow developed parties to earn and trade emissions credits through projects implemented either in other developed countries or in developing countries, which they can use towards meeting their commitments. These mechanisms help identify lowest-cost opportunities for reducing emissions and attract private sector participation in emission reduction efforts. Developing nations benefit in terms of technology transfer and investment brought about through collaboration with industrialised nations under the CDM.
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Action beyond governments: Road to innovation Non-governmental agencies and corporate entities also engage in voluntary emission reduction through tree planting and adoption of renewable energy resources for their production activities. It is important to note that developing countries cannot undertake mitigation strategies without being compensated. The Bali Action Plan (held in Indonesia, 2007) led to a consensus adoption of the Assessment Report putting to rest debate of the cause-effect relationship between greenhouse gases emissions and climate change impacts. The deliberations came to accord full implementation of the UNFCCC and enable innovations to be supported. The most important area of innovation in research lies on renewable energy sources. Examples like the development of cellulose alcohol production technologies from agriculture wastes could trigger a major revolution in this area. The role of Information and Communications Technologies and media is to create a wider awareness of the issues in debate, and to watch the latest developments in the deliberations on this issue. Countries also come up with their own action plans and these can be disseminated widely using media and ICTs. ICTs also help in mitigation and adaptation strategies, for example many industries are modernising for bringing efficiencies using IT. More precise machinery adapted by industries is also reducing emissions.
South Asian Region’s unique clime and disasters India and its neighbouring countries face climate variability, perhaps one of the highest in the world, due to the monsoon cycles and presence of Himalayas in the North and the Eastern Coasts.
Climate change will exacerbate the variability, and probably the intensity frequencies of disasters may increase. The challenges and solutions remain to be addressed at the regional (South Asian) level. Other issues of concern are glacial melting and impact on water availability, flooding etc. which are likely to impact agriculture and livelihoods of people living in the flood plains. In the years to come, with more sharing of scientific research and data, we will be better prepared to cope with some of these disasters. Strategies like flood proofing, rain water harvesting and co-benefit of energy efficient technology adoption resulting in cost saving and energy saving strategies will lead to carbon dioxide reductions. There are also changes that people can make at the personal level by making life-style changes, engaging in forestation drives, and as a responsible country. Governments will engage with all countries and see that developed countries are trading partners. Adaptation strategies and developing heat resistant crop varieties will mean investments in agricultural research and development over a sustained period of decade or more. Research investments are also needed to address climate studies and organisations must adopt mitigation strategies voluntarily with a win-win bent of mind, as efficient machineries will result in reduction of costs while reducing emissions. Innovative strategies by governments to support in-country mitigation efforts, like providing fiscal benefits or tax breaks may also encourage rapid adoption of climate change mitigating technologies and promoting innovations in research and development. In this issue, we have tried to look at the climate change issue and the role of ICTs. This will be an area that i4d will continue to research on and report in the coming issues. „ Jayalakshmi Chittoor, jchittoor@csdms.in
Assessing technology transfer: The CDM way United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat has published an all-encompassing report on Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) technology transfer. The abridged version of the report deals with key findings on technology transfer in CDM. The final version of the report analyses technology transfer in CDM projects. Both of these report formats are available at http://cdm.unfccc. int/Reference/Reports/TTreport/index.html. The report has been compiled by a team of consultants on the basis of a Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) matrix and certain other indices. Though CDM is not specifically designed to resolve technology transfer issues and concerns yet the greater need of emission reduction through low-reduction technologies has motivated CDM to finance emission reduction projects that infuse technologies not generally available in the host countries. On the basis of the claims made by project participants in the Project Design Documents of 2293 projects in the CDM pipeline as of September 2007, the CDM report tried to assess
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the dimensions of technology transfer by analysing technology transfer types, technology transfer by project types, technology transfer by host country, technology supplier versus buyer participants, origin of technology and technology transfer versus technology needs. According to the report, approximately 39% of the 2293 registered and proposed CDM projects, accounting for 64% of the annual emission reductions, claim to involve technology transfer. The assessment report also indicates that technology transfer is more common for larger projects and projects with foreign participants. The report also suggests that transfer usually involves both knowledge and equipment with equipment imports accounting for most of the remaining transfer. Technology, according to the report generates mainly from Japan, Germany, the USA, France, and Great Britain. The report also affirms that the rate of technology transfer is significantly higher than average for projects in Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam and significantly lower than average for projects in India. i4d | May 2008
World News Number of Internet users rising in EU countries
Information for development www.i4donline.net
e-Government Thailand Ministry unveils ICT strategies
egov
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ministry of Thailand has formulated ICT strategies for the next three years to promote the country as ICT hub of Asia. The strategies comprise of the development of ICT infrastructure nationwide; the development of a standard for government management and integration; support and development of the ICT industry in the global market; human resource development; ICT policy research and development; innovation development; and the utilisation of ICT in the government sector. The Ministry has planned to implement various projects like universal service obligation, Metro Network, wireless services, 3G mobile phone infrastructure and 280,000 ADSL ports. The strategies are meant to focus on developing back-office operations and integrating the communication networks of government agencies so that companies are able to provide eServices nationwide. The strategy for the support and development of ICT industry intends to focus on the development of the ICT industry so that it can compete in the global market. Eventually, the Ministry hopes to launch various projects like creating an ICT Master Plan 2020 and plans to set up 800 ICT community centres that will provide ICT literacy.
Education Nigeria to receive 8,000 PCs from CAI Nigeria has received 8,000 PCs from Computer Aid International (CAI), a
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According to the EU Commission report, more than 96% of European schools are now connected to the Internet with 80% of the schools having broadband connections. 60% of public services in the EU are fully available online. The commission report shows that Europe’s ICT policy strategy ‘i2010–a European Information Society for Growth and Jobs’ has triggered new EU initiatives on regulation, research and public-private partnerships. 57% of doctors now send or receive patients’ data (17% in 2002) and 46% of them receive results from laboratories electronically (11% in 2002). 77% of EU businesses had a broadband connection in 2007 (62% in 2005) and 77% use the Internet for dealing with banks (70% in 2005).
U.K.-based charity organisation and provider of refurbished computers. CAI has supplied 100,000 fully refurbished computers to more than 106 countries in the past eight years. The PC deal is a part of CAI’s efforts toward assisting developing nations in bridging the digital divide by making affordable PCs available. CAI has made donations to the Cooperative Information Network (COPINE/NITDA/FMST) at Obafemi Awolowo University, the Distance Learning Centre in the University of Ibadan and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) in Ogbomoso. CAI is working mostly with secondary schools, health centers and other Non Government Organisations (NGOs). In the past eight years, CAI and its partners have been able to supply standard systems renewed under stringent conditions at affordable rates to people around the world.
Telecentre 12,000 post offices to be computerised in Pakistan
In a major automation drive, all the General Post Offices (GPOs) of Pakistan have been computerised, while PC-1 for automation of 12,000 post offices has been
sent to the government for approval. As a part of this drive, post offices will have instant cash transfer facility. Under this automation and modernisation plan all post offices will be inter-connected and inter-linked and people even in remote areas would be able to transfer cash to anyone anywhere in the country where a post office is functioning. Post offices will start disbursing small loans. The scheme will soon be launched in rural Sindh and southern Punjab. There is also a plan to open mobile post offices in the country. Mobile post offices will provide postal and other allied services during emergency situation in areas where normal services get disrupted due to natural disasters or any other man-made hazards. These post offices will be mounted on vehicles which will be immediately moved to such areas. Another comprehensive plan has been devised to initiate a new courier service which collaborate with private courier services. This step will greatly benefit people especially those living in remote areas. To aid the entire process, the government is also planning to open citizen information/ telecentres in all post offices of the country under e-Governance plan which will enable people to access post offices from where they will have the facility to get any kind of information about public and private institutions or download application forms required for some specified purpose. Postal staff will collect utility bills from people’s residences which will spare consumers of the trouble of standing in queues. Initially, the plan will be launched in Karachi and later extended to other cities. i4d | May 2008
INTERVIEW: ANDREW SORS
The cooperation ahead In conversation with Jayalakshmi Chittoor (Programme Co-ordinator) and Rachita Jha (Research Associate), i4d, CSDMS, India
Science and Technology Section at the European Commission’s Delegation in India. In the course of the discussion with i4d team, Andrew highlighted three key components to EU actions on information society: Policy – i2010; ICT development and regulatory frameworks; research frameworks. Here, his perspectives on how to help promote strengthening of scientific cooperation between India and the EU especially in ICT related research and how to effectively identify the role of ICT to move towards an Information Society are discussed. He emphasised that the views expressed below are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission.
Andrew Sors, Head of Science and Technology Section at the European Commission’s Delegation in India In the context of the strengthening EUIndia Scientific Co-operation, the i4d team caught up with Andrew Sors, Head of Science and Technology Section - European Commission Delegation to India. Prior to joining European Commission in 1982, Andrew spend some time in the industry and subsequently in a Research Institute May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
of London University. Since joining the Commission, Andrew has held a variety of research management posts, including Head of Unit for Environment SocioEconomics and most recently Head of Unit for Socio-Economic Research. In November 2005, Andrew was appointed as the Head of the newly established
What are the specific areas in which EU ICT co-operation has been launched? We have heard the announcement of the seventh FP, when did India get involved in the partnership? Research on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is a key part of EU S&T Framework Programmes (FP). In the current FP7 (2007 – 2013), ICT is one of 10 thematic priority areas, the one with the largest budget of over nine billion EUROs. Within this ICT theme, there are seven main research areas, covering both industry and technology needs as well as socio-economic goals. One of these seven areas is “ICT for independent living and inclusion”.
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Institutions and researchers from India have participated in the ICT theme in previous FP’s and are also participating, with European partners in FP7. Can an Indian partner be a lead partner in the FP framework? In general, the official ‘coordinator’ of FP7 projects should be from within the EU. However, in terms of scientific involvement, Indian partners can and often do play a major role within funded FP projects. What is the policy and regulatory framework, are there specific areas in the field of mobility that are being addressed? Along with ICT related researches, ICT ‘policy’ and ICT Regulatory Framework are key domains of EU action. The Policy activity is encapsulated within “i2010” which has three main priorities: a single European Information Space; innovation and investment in research; inclusion of better public services and quality of life. In terms of mobility, researchers in ICT are eligible to benefit from various schemes, notably incoming and outgoing research fellowships within EU Framework Programme’s ‘MarieCurie’ awards. We would like you to elaborate on EU’s i2010 policy? i2010 represents the policy objectives of EU for Information Society. i2010 is specifically identified in context of the EU’s Lisbon strategy, a strategy which aims to make Europe, by 2010, the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledgebased economy in the world. i2010 aims to promote creation of more unified information space, revising regulations and enhancing location-specific content. eInclusion, a key objective with the i2010, is intended to promote an inclusive society by accommodating diverse interests of aged, disabled and minority sections of society. India, like EU, has similar geo-political features in terms of political divisions and ethnic diversities. The similarities accredit India to share its experiences with EU which further calls for two-way knowledge exchange dialogue. Do you think local innovations and success stories in India can help build on the EU-India cooperation? Yes, of course. With the rapid growth in both the quality and quantity of ICT related research and development in India, the EU and this country are rapidly building new forms of S&T cooperation based on symmetry, mutual benefit and co-investment of resources. This type of cooperation will provide a hugely valuable complement to increasing involvement by India in FP7, in the field of ICT and beyond. There is an investment that EU research components make on environment and climate change. Is there possibility of ICT and climate change programme having any linkages in the FP7? Advances in ICT can have significant, positive impacts in promoting more ‘climate friendly’ technologies and lifestyles. In the field of research too, ICT’s provide important support for
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research on climate change, from modeling, prediction, through observation to mitigation and adaptation. These synergies are reflected both in the ICT and in the Environment thematic areas of the FP7 Cooperation Specific Programme. Supporting sustainable development is one of the key objectives of the former, while the Environment theme promotes, inter alia, advances in Earth observation and assessment tools.
FP7 effort to tap ICT to address climate change A coordinated approach is required to address the challenges posed by the increasing number of natural and manmade pressures on the environment and its resources at pan-European and international levels. Also required is a better understanding to cope up with issues such as climate change and to identify environmental-friendly technologies to improve management of both natural and man-made resources. Sustainable management of the environment and its resources requires multidisciplinary and integrated research in order to advance the knowledge on the interactions between the climate, biosphere, ecosystems and human activities. EU is keen to work and develop new environmental technologies, tools and services to combat the issue. Accordingly, under FP7, EU ICT research activities are initiated by EU to address policy needs to follow up to the Kyoto and post-Kyoto actions on climate change. Thus, the ‘Environment’ programme budgeted €1 890 million for the period of 2007-2013, is to be implemented under the following activities and areas: Climate change, pollution and risks • Pressures on environment and climate • Environment and health • Natural hazards Sustainable management of resources • Conservation and sustainable management of natural and man-made resources and biodiversity • Management of marine environment Environmental Technologies • Environmental technologies for observation, simulation, prevention, mitigation, adaptation, remediation and restoration of the natural and man-made environment • Protection, conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage • Technology assessment, verification and testing Earth observation and assessment tools • Earth and ocean observation systems, monitoring methods for the environment and sustainable development • Forecasting methods and assessment tools for sustainable development Source: http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7/index_en.cfm?pg=env i4d | May 2008
You have toiled You have spent sleepless nights You have fought all odds You have made the impossible, possible You have converted those who doubted your ideas
You have done your best...
THE ENERGY AND RESOURCES INSTITUTE (TERI), INDIA
Equipping ourselves better Earth’s climate has changed several times during its geological history with alternate glacial and interglacial phases. However, since industrial revolution and urbanisation have picked up, the rate of GreenHouse Gas (GHG) build-up in the earth’s atmosphere has gone up steeply resulting in increased temperature of the earth’s surface, commonly known as global warming or climate change. Dr Vivek Kumar
Associate Fellow, Centre for Global Environment Research, TERIz New Delhi, India kumarv@teri.res.in
been found to rise at an average rate of 1.8 mm/year over 1961 to 2003. The increase has been even greater from 1993 to 2003 at about 3.1 mm/year. Cold days, nights, and frost have become less frequent, whereas, hot days, hot nights, and heat waves have become more frequent.
Climate trends
Future climate predictions
Climate models at the global and regional scale (General and Regional Circulation Models) are used to study and simulate the variations in climate because of the human-induced perturbations. The trends in the climate, as brought out in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), show that the total temperature increase from 1850–99 to 2001–05 is 0.760C. The global average sea level has
With regard to future climate, the IPCC report predicts that by the mid 21st century, annual average river run-off and water availability will increase by 10%–40% at high latitudes and in some wet tropical areas, and decrease by 10%–30% over some dry regions. Globally, 20%–30% of flora and fauna assessed so far are likely to be at increased high risk of extinction, possibly by 2100, if increase in average global mean temperature exceeds 2 to 30C
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above pre-industrial levels. The report also forecasts a sea level rise of up to 0.6 m or more by 2100. According to the report, in both the polar regions, specific ecosystems and habitats will become vulnerable, as climatic barriers to species invasion will be lowered. One of the major impact of climate change will be on the hydrological regime and regional water availability. Changes in the hydrological cycle will eventually have serious implications both for the quality and quantity of fresh water available. In addition, implications will be felt on hydropower supply, driven mainly by perennial rivers in the hydrological regime.
Climate change impact Accelerated sea level rise is one of the most certain and studied outcome of climate change. Rising sea levels result in inundation of land, salt water ingression, and threaten life, livelihood, and property. Along with this, possible increases in the frequency and intensity of cyclones and storm surges is also predicted. Climate change is predicted to result in a shift in forest types based on changing climatic patterns. This will not only have implications on the survival of native and indigenous species but will also threaten the livelihoods of forestdependent communities. As a result of climate change natural ecosystems such as mangroves, coral reefs, and mountain ecosystems are threatened. Climate change is also predicted to lead to increasing mortality from extreme temperature and weather events and also indirect impact like changes in ecological, socio-economic systems such as transmission of vector-borne diseases, i4d | May 2008
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Nominations are also invited for the following special category awards: • • • • • • •
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Last Date June 30, 2008 AWARDS
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changes in agricultural productivity, malnutrition, and so on. Long-term climate change is expected to have significant impact on infrastructure. Extreme weather events are a major cause of damage to infrastructure, posing huge costs in maintenance and repair. Damage to infrastructure from climate change is likely to cost huge resources.
Climate change: Snippets of impact on India India already faces numerous challenges on account of high population, urban sprawl, and economic development; climate change further exacerbates the stress. According to the IPCC report, population growth and climate change together are predicted to reduce the per capita availability of fresh water in India from 1900 m3 (cubic metres) currently to 1000 m3 by 2025. More intense rain and more frequent flash floods during the monsoon is likely to result in a higher proportion of run-off and a reduction in the proportion of water reaching the groundwater. Further, the climate sensitive sectors of Indian economy such as agriculture, aquaculture or forest based activities are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Studies by climate scientists reveal a 2%–5% decrease in yield potential of wheat and maize for a temperature rise of 0.5–1.50C in India. Another study suggests that by the end of century, the net cereal production in South Asian countries will decline at least between 4% and 10%.
International climate debate Climate change is a global problem and requires cooperation of all the countries in addressing this challenge. Historically, it is the industrialised countries who have been responsible for the large GHG build-up in the earth’s atmosphere and recognising this fact, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted in 1992 at the Rio Earth summit, agreed that industrialised countries take the lead in addressing climate change. The Framework Convention mentions that developing countries take actions for addressing climate change within their respective capacities. The Convention also calls for technological and financial support from industrialised countries to developing countries in addressing climate change. The Kyoto Protocol of the UNFCCC called for Annex I1 countries collectively bringing down their GHG emissions by 5.2 per cent below the 1990 level by the first commitment period i.e. by 2012. India and a few other developing countries with small contributions to global GHG emissions (during 1992), are on the focus of current international climate debate because of their growing economies vis-a-vis increasing GHG emissions. In view of this, several political groups are even proposing that these developing countries should also take emission reduction commitments by trading good carbons or by taking recourse to low-emission technologies.
Information and communication needs The climate change issue has been in scientific and policy arena for more than two to three decades, yet it is still evolving. The subject is also faced with several uncertainties with regard to exact predictions of extent of changes in temperature, rainfall or other impacts. This also poses a challenge in taking concrete actions for addressing the problem. The Framework Convention however mentions that ‘…where there are threats of serious and irreversible
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damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures (measures to anticipate, prevent or minimise the causes of climate change)…’. It thus becomes very important to study the science of climate change more precisely and reduce uncertainties as much as possible. Furthermore, the communication of right information to right people becomes very important and the role of ICT becomes very critical in this regard. Following are a few aspects where ICT needs to play a role in strengthening this field. • Scientific studies – The future prediction of climate change and its impacts is based on the numerical climate modeling using the general circulation models and regional circulation models. There is a need to build upon these models further by bringing in more regional perspectives and thus improving upon the precision of regional climate impact projections. This would also help the planners and managers in integrating the climate change impacts meaningfully in their sectoral plans and programs. • Data bases – For better analysis of trends, predictions of future climate, policy and programme interventions, etc., it becomes important to develop databases for various activities. In developing countries, availability of baseline data is often a big challenge. Such a database will also help monitor the impacts of policies and programs that may be introduced to address climate change. In addition to databases, appropriate tools for their analysis and dissemination are also equally important. • Decision support systems for various applications– Climate change is an interdisciplinary subject and actions to address climate change in one sector may have a leakage or rebound effect somewhere else. There is, therefore, a need to take a holistic approach to climate change response measures. IT based decision support systems could come in handy for analysing the forward and backward linkages in many of such cases, of course these need to be backed up by appropriate validation exercises. • Information dissemination – Climate change being a multidisciplinary subject, the stakeholder groups also becomes quite varied ranging from researchers, policy makers, planners and managers, civil society organisations and farmers. ICT has got a significant role in disseminating information to various stakeholder groups through new and innovative means so that they can take appropriate preventive or response measures. An example of such a need would be a state of the art early warming system so that the information about extreme events could be spread to far and wide corners and well in time so that the resulting losses could be minimised. There may be several other such examples across various sectors and ICT needs to play an instrumental role in exchanging information regarding best practices within and among nations. A great responsibility lies with the IT industry in terms of improving scientific understanding of the climate change challenge and in disseminating information to different stakeholder groups. A proactive approach of the industry in this regard would immensely help address climate change challenge. 1
The countries listed in Annex I of the UNFCCC, mostly the industrialised countries i4d | May 2008
CLIMATIC CHANGE AND CLIMATE IMPACTS (C3I), UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Weather events and changing climate Various models on climate and climate change tend to identify a linear relationship between climate change events and the hazards created because of the same. Prof. Martin Beniston
Chair for Climate Research University of Geneva Switzerland Martin.Beniston@unige.ch
Understanding climate change Considerable progress has been made in the understanding and simulation of various forms of extreme climate events, in particular heat and cold spells, wind storms and heavy precipitation. Because such events are costly in human and economic terms, a key challenge for research is to assess whether climatic extremes are likely to increase in frequency and/or in intensity in a changing global climate. This is by no means a trivial exercise, as was shown by Frei and Schaer (2001), because it is difficult to relate in a statistically-meaningful manner rare and short-lived weather episodes to long-term warming trends in a system that is characterised by significant nonlinearities and thresholds (e.g., Rial et al., 2004). Changing statistical characteristics of extremes as they respond to warmer climates also add a degree of complexity to the assessment of their future changes (Katz and Brown, 2002). Furthermore, because anthropogenic climate forcing is superimposed upon other modes of natural climate variability, it is unclear whether changes in extremes observed in various parts of the world are directly related to the enhanced greenhouse effect or whether they are influenced by specific features of phenomena such as ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation) or the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation), as pointed out by Beniston and Stephenson (2004), May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
for eg. Changes in the behavior of mean and extreme climates on both sides of the Atlantic in response to particular modes of the NAO have been investigated inter alia by Antoniadou et al. (2000), Wanner et al. (2000), and Beniston and Jungo (2002).
Reviewing extreme climate events Initial results of the behaviour of extreme events in a changing climate have emerged in the context of networked research, particularly in the EU framework (e.g., the ‘PRUDENCE’ project described by Christensen et al., 2002). Based on the output of regional climate models, the probable increase in summer heat waves (Beniston, 2004a) and warm winter spells (Beniston, 2005) have been highlighted. Extremes of precipitation (i.e., drought and heavy rain, e.g., Beniston, 2006) have also been investigated, with contrasting results for various parts of Europe, with an enhanced likelihood of drought in the Mediterranean, for example. A general increase in summer drought over much of Western and Central Europe is projected to occur under the IPCC A-2 greenhousegas emissions scenario (Nakicenovic et al., 2000), while simultaneously the occurrence of short but very heavy precipitation is also suggested by some models (e.g., Christensen and Christensen, 2003). Winter wind storms over Europe under current climatic conditions have been simulated with some degree of success by Goyette et al., (2001; 2003), thus paving the way for assessments of shifts in storm intensity, frequency, and location in the future. An overview of the behaviour of climatic extremes in Europe towards the end of the 21st century is provided by Beniston et al. (2007).
The hydrological cycle The impacts of changing extremes in the alpine region have received considerable attention in recent years, in particular as they relate to snow pack and the key control that snow pack exerts on river runoff and alpine vegetation in particular (Keller et al., 2005). With an average reduction of snow amount in the Alps by over 50 percent in terms of volume and duration at elevations around 2,000 m above sea level as suggested by a number of studies (e.g., Beniston, 2004b), hydrological regimes will be significantly impacted, since the seasonality and the amount of water in alpine catchments will change. This has already been alluded to in the past (e.g., IPCC, 2007), but with improvement in the quality of regional climate model results, the quantification of shifts in the components of the hydrological cycle has also been improved. The suggested increase of wintertime runoff and sharp decline of summer runoff in river basins such as the Rhine and the Rhone implies an enhanced flood risk in winter and probability of drought at the end of the summer. Dry river beds are a rare occurrence in the northern Alps because glacier-melt waters ensure a minimum discharge in rivers during warm and dry periods of the summer even when there is no more snow-melt to contribute to runoff; in the future, however, with rapidly retreating glaciers and the probable disappearance of 50-90 percent of current ice mass (e.g., Haeberli and Beniston, 1998), glaciers will no longer be in a position to contribute to runoff in the future. Alpine rivers originating in the northern part of the Alps (Switzerland and Austria in particular) are thus likely to exhibit flow regimes currently found
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in the Mediterranean zone. Future discharge characteristics will have implications for the management of water resources, e.g., for hydropower in the Alps, and also for water supply to industry, agriculture and households in the lowland areas of Western and Central Europe through which flow rivers whose source is in the Alps (e.g., Beniston, 2003).
Future concerns Regions now considered safe from catastrophic wind storms, heat waves, and floods could become increasingly vulnerable in the future. Under such circumstances, the associated damage costs would become extremely high, also because the cost of infrastructure will also continue to increase. Society will face considerable challenges when faced with events such as the 2003 heat wave, for example, that are projected to become more
common in the latter decades of the 21st century. In view of the severity of the impacts that affected much of Europe throughout the summer of 2003, such as excess deaths recorded in France, Italy, and Spain (WHO, 2003), crop failures in many of the producing countries, and strongly-reduced discharge in numerous rivers, events such as the 2003 heat wave as a ‘shape of things to come’ is a signal that should be given appropriate consideration by decision-makers. It is therefore important in view of the environmental, human and economic costs exerted by extreme climatic events to address the problem of their behaviour in a changing global climate, in order to develop a conceptual basis of sufficient quality to enable a quantification of their future probability of occurrence and lead to the establishment of appropriate response strategies aimed at minimising the consequences of such events.
References: • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • •
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Antoniadou, A.; Besse, P.; Fougeres, A.-L.; Le Gall, C.; Stephenson, D.B., 2001 : L’Oscillation Atlantique Nord (NAO) et son influence sur le climat Européen, Revue de Statistique Appliqué, XLIX (3), 39-60. Beniston, M., 2003: Climatic change in mountain regions: a review of possible impacts. Climatic Change, 59, 5-31 Beniston, M., 2004a: The 2003 heat wave in Europe: A shape of things to come? Geophys. Research Letters, 31, L02022. Beniston, M., 2004b: Climatic change and its impacts. An overview focusing on Switzerland. Kluwer Academic Publishers (now Springer Publishers), Dordrecht/The Netherlands and Boston/USA, 296 pp. Beniston, M., 2005: Warm winter spells in the Swiss Alps. Strong heat waves in the cold season? Geophys. Research Letters, 32, L01812 Beniston, M., 2006: The August 2005 intense rainfall event in Switzerland: not necessarily an analog for strong convective events in a greenhouse climate. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L5701 Beniston, M., and Jungo, P., 2002: Shifts in the distributions of pressure, temperature and moisture in the alpine region in response to the behavior of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Theor. and Appl. Clim., 71, 29-42 Beniston, M., Keller, F., Koffi, B., and Goyette, S., 2003: Estimates of snow accumulation and volume in the Swiss Alps under changing climatic conditions. Theor. and Appl. Clim., 76, 125-140 Beniston, M., and D. B. Stephenson, 2004: Extreme climatic events and their evolution under changing climatic conditions. Global and Planetary Change, 44, 1-9 Beniston, M., Stephenson, D. B., Christensen, O. B., Ferro, C. A. T., Frei, C., Goyette, S., Halsnaes, K., Holt, T., Jylhä, K., Koffi, B., Palutikoff, J., Schöll, R., Semmler, T., and Woth, K., 2007: Future extreme events in European climate; an exploration of Regional Climate Model projections. Climatic Change, 81, 71-95 Christensen, J. H., and Christensen, O. B., 2003: Severe summertime flooding in Europe. Nature, 421, 805-806. Christensen, J.H., T. Carter, F. Giorgi, PRUDENCE Employs New Methods to Assess European Climate Change, EOS, Vol. 82, p. 147, 2002 Frei, C., and Schär, C., 2001: Detection probability of trends in rare events: Theory and application to heavy precipitation in the Alpine region. J. Climate 14, 1568-1584 Goyette, S., Beniston, M., Jungo, P., Caya, D., and Laprise, R., 2001: Numerical investigation of an extreme storm with the Canadian Regional Climate Model: The case study of windstorm Vivian, Switzerland, February 27, 1990. Climate Dynamics, 18, 145-168 Goyette, S., Brasseur, O., and Beniston, M., 2003: Application of a new wind gust parameterisation ; multi-scale case studies performed with the Canadian RCM. J. Geophys. Res., 108, 4371-4389 Haeberli, W., and Beniston, M., 1998: Climate change and its impacts on glaciers and permafrost in the Alps. Ambio, 27, 258 – 265 IPCC, 2007: Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change, Cambridge University Press Katz, R. W., and Brown, B. G., 1992: Extreme events in a changing climate: Variability is more important than averages. Climatic Change, 21, 289 - 302. Keller, F., Goyette, S., and Beniston, M., 2005: Sensitivity Analysis of Snow Cover to Climate Change Scenarios and Their Impact on Plant Habitats in Alpine Terrain. Climatic Change, 72, 299-319 Nakicenovic, N. et al., 2000: IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, USA, 599 pp. Rial, J., Pielke, R.A., Beniston, M., Claussen, M., Canadell, J., Cox, P., Held, H., de Noblet-Ducoulet, N., Prinn, R., Reynolds, J., and Salas, J.D., 2004: Non-linearities, feedbacks and critical thresholds in the earth’s climate system. Climatic Change¸ 65, 11-38. Wanner, H, S. Broennimann, C. Casty, D. Gyalistras, J. Luterbacher, C. Schmutz, D.B. Stephenson, E. Xoplaki, 2001 : North Atlantic Oscillation – concepts and studies, Survey Geophysics, 22, 321-381. WHO, 2003: The health impacts of 2003 summer heat-waves. Briefing note for the Delegations of the fifty-third session of the WHO (World Health Organization) Regional Committee for Europe, 12 pp.
i4d | May 2008
ONEWORLD SOUTH ASIA (OWSA), INDIA
Climate justice for the realisation of MDGs Leveraging the ICT niche, OWSA intends to develop, document and disseminate key climatology knowledge using multi-channel media, and work towards multi-stakeholder consensus on climate change and for the realisation of MDGs
Naimur Rahman
Director, OneWorld South Asia, New Delhi, India naimur.rahman@oneworld.net
There has been much debate on the causes and consequences of climate change over the last decade. The changes in the earth’s climate are generally attributed to global warming caused by the concentration of greenhouse gases and an excess of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, land use patterns and use of ozone depleting materials. The consequences would undeniably impact the lives of our children and their children, making today’s choices most critical and difficult. Moving beyond the concerns of environmentalists to the larger issue of human development, climate change as a global concern becomes intrinsic to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), bearing strongly on poverty reduction, health, nutrition, food security, access to resources, education, human rights, and the relationship between developed and developing countries. A key dimension of Goal 7 of MDGs pertains to environmental sustainability.
Climate change impact on South Asia Pursuit of development goals remains a priority in South Asia, given that most countries of the region lag far behind. The recent report by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP), the Asian Development Bank and United Nations Development May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
Programme (UNDP) states that India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan are unlikely to meet most of the eight identified goals. In addition, in the area of ensuring environmental sustainability and reducing emission of greenhouse gases (towards mitigating climate change) all South Asian countries have either not made any progress, or have regressed. South Asia, home to three of the ten most populous countries of the world – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, is also a potential hotspot vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Even as scientists over the world are involved in a fierce debate about how much sea levels will rise, there is no debate that melting ice sheets, declining water tables and rising levels of salinity will affect water availability, health and crop productivity. Pressure on land will magnify, stemming from growing populations, and leading to conflicts, displacements and changes in migration patterns. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports predict that the splendid Himalayan glaciers will retreat and disappear by the year 2035, while millions will face displacement in the region as homes and lands are inundated. (Greenpeace has projected a figure of 125 million people in India and Bangladesh alone). In addition to the gloomy climatologic change projections in near and medium term future, climate change would wreck havoc in the agricultural system of South Asia region – with resultant decrease in crop yield up to 30 percent. This alone, combined with the influence of rapid population growth, will add to increasing hunger and starvation in the region.
Poverty and climate change High levels of poverty and slow progress towards the achievement of development targets, coupled with its susceptibility to climate change, places the South Asian region in an extremely delicate situation. This state is rendered far more complex in the light of the controversial and debatable relationship between climate change and prevailing development paths being pursued at present. It is also widely recognised that the impact of climate change is very severely felt on poorer countries and communities in the countryside. Even without climatic change, environmental impact of development processes fuelled by the quest for economic growth is a considerable threat to food security and livelihood, and effects of climate change will exacerbate the adverse implications further. At the same time, industrial growth viewed as essential to the progress of the developing world, strongly linked with the use of fossil fuels, serves as the traditional path to development. It is understood that the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases contributing to global warming will continue to rise in the developing countries through the next few decades. This understanding has also found space in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), whereby parties to the framework convention agreed to ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ for different groups of countries.
Mitigation efforts The present framework for mitigating climate change requires industrialised countries to reduce emissions of carbon
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dioxide and other greenhouse gases to below their 1990 levels, or trade in emission credits, or invest in conservation; some are also required to provide financial resources and technologies to the developing countries to deal with adverse effects of climate change. The developing countries do not have immediate restrictions under UNFCCC, given their need for progress.Negotiations under the Framework Convention and elsewhere have however been marred by the perceived divide between the interests and obligations of the developed and the developing countries and in reality, are now being driven by systemic inequalities in global resources allocation and use. Powerful vested interests including oil, coal, gas industries, automotive and utility industries, chief energy producers and consumers/polluters also influence the climate change dialogue.As a result, it is felt that the principles of equity and shared responsibility have been impacted and focus has been skewed towards minimising the burden of implementation on polluter industries and countries instead of giving priority to the vulnerabilities of communities and countries at greatest risk and disadvantage. Multilateral environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol under the UNFCCC are still to be acceded to or ratified by countries (including the Bush administration in the United States of America); and there has been the dilution of existing provisions by way of greater flexibility in trading of emission credits and broadening the coverage of such credits. There is thus a pressing need for enhanced participation and activism by the countries of the South, and especially South Asia to realign climate negotiations in the global debate and to strike new bargains conducive to meeting the long term goals of environmental stability and sustainability, poverty alleviation and achieving the MDGs. The countries of South Asia need to take a closer look at the implications of climate change vis-à-vis their development priorities; and build a balanced perspective on inclusive growth, development and climate justice.
OneWorld South Asia’s initiatives Taking cue from the recent Bali negotiations, the idea was to chart a future course of action by engaging stakeholders to deliberate upon and engage with the salient issues of climate change and development, develop possible solutions in terms of increasing awareness, and share experiences and best practices on how to cope best with its varied adverse impact in the South Asia region. The Seventh Annual Regional Meeting (ARM) of OneWorld South Asia (OWSA) on the theme ‘Climate Justice for Realisation of the MDGs: Southern Voices and Perspectives’, held in New Delhi, India on 8-9 February 2008 succeeded in taking further this debate by establishing the significance of both objectives i.e., addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation issues and the urgency of fulfilling the development requirements of South Asia, and by ensuring that the voices of the South are heard at a critical time in the world debate. The two-day event and its various sessions focused on aggregating experience and knowledge centred around climate change impact by integrating locale-specific, geo-cultural contexts and inter-sectoral relationships while also seeking effective, inclusive and sustainable solutions. The presence of development practitioners, government and private sector representatives, journalists, grassroots activists, academics and
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research scholars – and experts on health, education, livelihood, water and environment – made ARM 2008 a lucrative platform for South Asian dialogue, enriching discussions, and providing an impetus to future initiatives for steering the development process and realisation of MDGs. While emphasising the greater role and responsibilities of the rich and developed nations to work for and spare substantial resources towards the mitigation measures, including technology development and its transfer into public domain, there was the recognition that developing countries cannot afford to be complacent. There is an urgency to look into issues and implications of climate change in developing countries and poorer regions are to be prepared to face its varied challenges. The sessions highlighted an urgent need to identify regional and local indicators to assess specific climate change impacts, highlight local initiatives for mitigation and adaptation, and promote research and development towards more sustainable solutions. South Asian countries should pay heed to the current development model and its climate linkages; in doing so, it is especially important to safeguard the lives and rights of grassroots and indigenous communities in symbiotic relationships and systems that enable mitigation and adaptation at local and regional levels. There is also a growing need for information, analyses, advocacy, continued engagement and dialogue, the setting of effective standards and implementation procedures, and capacity building in this regard. Drawing upon the deliberations, commitments and synergies that have emerged from ARM 2008, OWSA hopes to take forward the agenda of formulating knowledge assisted inclusive strategies for mitigation and adaptation to climate change challenges; and engage with and amplify grassroots voices from South Asia in the climate change dialogue.
ICTs in climate change OWSA believes new technologies and knowledge connectivity can provide potential solutions to sustainable resource management and economic development. New technologies and a collective pool of knowledge can help build adaptation and mitigation efforts that holistically address both development and climate change challenges. By leveraging its key ICT niche, OWSA intends to develop, document and disseminate key climatology knowledge and resources in simple language, using multi-channel new and emerging media as well as traditional media, and work in partnerships to lead discussion and multi-stakeholder consensus on climate change and for the realisation of MDGs – towards a holistic vision on climate justice and sustainable development in the South Asia region.The relevance of ICT with its range of tools supporting traditional to new media can help share knowledge and experiences, accelerate research, build capacities to help communities understand, communicate on and respond to climate change implications, network and advocate for policy change, and put together multi-stakeholder collaborations towards solutions and actions that span sectors and domains in the developmentclimate justice space. Acknowledgement: With input received from Swati Sahi, Web Editor, OneWorld South Asia, India i4d | May 2008
e-Agriculture News
Information for development www.i4donline.net
India: TNAU introduces online examinations
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has introduced online examinations for first year students. The university had conducted online examinations in all campuses and about 800 students have already appeared for the examinations. To expedite the process of online examination system, TNAU is providing Wi-Fi enabled laptops to students. They could view the question paper only during the time set by the teacher after entering the password as announced in the examination hall. After the examination, the answers would be stored in a separate file and mailed to the mail ID of the teacher concerned for evaluation. The e-Education consists of e-Teaching, e-Learning, e-Communications, e-Assignment, e-Examination and e-Evaluation. TNAU has also established an e-Learning lab. TNAU has become the first State Agricultural University (SAU) in India among 44 SAU’s to host the e-Learning resource materials for 381 courses through website (www. tnau.ac.in) and implement the ICT based teaching since 2003. The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) had sanctioned INR 120 million for development of the e-Course resource materials for BSc (Agriculture) degree from January 2008 to December 2009.
Internet: A useful tool for the Canadian farming community Like tractors, the Internet is also becoming a vital tool for farmers. Now-a-days, farmers in the province of Ontario, Canada, are using Internet to get information about May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
crop management, commodity futures and other farm business topics. Barrett Xplore Inc. is expanding highspeed Internet connections into rural areas of the City of Kawartha Lakes, Ontario. With the help of Internet, farmers can find information about crop management, commodity futures, e-Commerce, government reports, export sales and historical data. Farmers will also be able to access current weather information and forecasts. The high-speed Internet will also connect concurrent workshops in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, and to access speakers from Elgin County, Brockville and the Kawartha Lakes. The three-way project between the province, the city and Barrett Xplore Inc. is ready for an official take off in June 2008.
Madagascar recovering from ‘Ivan’ with the aid of IFAD The United Nations International Fund for Agricult u r a l De velopment (IFAD) is trying to help farmers of cyclone-affected Madagascar. 150,000 farmers have been rendered homeless and substantial amounts of crops and livestock have been destroyed because of the recent cyclone ‘Ivan’. Cyclone Ivan, which battered the country on 17th February 2008 and left at least 73 dead in its wake, destroyed around 50,000 hectares of rice and more than 100,000 hectares of other crops. In addition, fruit and spice trees have been uprooted, vegetable gardens and orchards destroyed, pigs and poultry have been washed away and fishing communities have lost boats and nets. As a response to this devastating inundation, IFAD has outlaid about $500,000 in order to help the rural poor by providing cereals and vegetable seeds, replanting fruit tree nurseries, repairing irrigation channels and replacing lost crops. UN agencies and their aid partners appealed for more than $36 million to help bring relief to the parts of Madagascar that have been buffeted by cyclones in the past month.
FAO confers award on the Indian Prime Minister The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh received the Agricola Medal from the United Na t i o n s Fo o d and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for his efforts to spur agricultural development and reduce hunger and poverty in India. FAO’s Director-General Jacques Diouf stated that Manmohan Singh has shown exemplary vision and resolve in promoting the growth of Indian agriculture. Jacques further added that the Indian Prime Minister’s rich experience in the field of Indian economy has helped the Prime Minister to propel modernised, technology-oriented and cost-effective agricultural practices in many parts of India. Jacques also noted that the flow of credit to Indian farmers had almost doubled in the last four years. In addition, horticultural production is set to double by 2012 while plans are underway to increase national rice, wheat and pulses production by 20 million tons, thus significantly improving domestic food security. The South Asian nation is the world’s second largest agricultural producer after China. Over 60 per cent of the population is employed in agriculture and the sector accounts for 18.5 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Government of Nigeria urges FCTA to improve agriculture
With increasing requirements to foster agricultural productivity, the Government of Nigeria has urged the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to put more emphasis on agricultural development. While speaking at the agricultural developers stakeholders’ meeting, the chairman of the stakeholders committee, Alhaji Yusuf Bala stated that agricultural development will lead the way to the attainment of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) by the year 2015.
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The i4d News He commented that things can become better if only the economic policies of the country are directed to encourage and support the growth of agricultural sector. He pointed out the role of agricultural sector in achieving the MDGs. The Federal and state governments are trying to create different programmes to ensure they fulfill the MDG’s 2015 target.
Farmers urged to adopt environmentally friendly practices During the launch of the Student’s Representative Council’s week celebration of the Faculty of Forestry and Resource Technology of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Fiapre, Ghana, Isaac Osei, the Regional Director of Environmental Protection Agency of Brong-Ahafo, has called farming communities to adopt environmentally friendly practices. To ensure environmental protection, Issac urged the farming communities to plant tree seedlings along banks of water bodies and to adopt organic farming to guard against environmental degradation. Issac appealed to the students to join environmental clubs in their institutions and put into practice what they had learnt so as to educate the public about the effects of environmental degradation. He also asked students to use their innovative faculties to help recycle waste products to combat poor sanitation in the country. He appealed to the government to provide laboratory and Information Communication Technology to promote and enhance the study of ICT among students.
FOMCA urges Malaysian Government to use the 1million idle hectares In a move to boost food production in Malaysia, the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (FOMCA) proposed that the Government convert the one million hectares of idle land to agricultural land. This will lead to a subsequent decrease in the import of food from other countries. According to Vice President of FOMCA, Datuk Patrick Sindu, the Government has to reintroduce Green Book Plan (GBP)
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campaign to encourage backyard farming, hydrophonic planting and organic farming. The government can also move a step further in the campaign by promoting the usage of ICT tools and latest farming methods in the agricultural sector. These tools and methods can be carried out via Precision Agriculture (PA), one of the most scientific and modern approaches to agriculture production in the 21st century. The farming management can be revolutionised by offering benefits in profitability, productivity, sustainability, crop quality and environmental protection on farm quality of life, food safety and rural economic development. The Government of Malaysia spent RM40 billion on subsidies annually to control prices. FOMCA has also proposed that the government form a National Price Commission to address the rising prices of goods in the country. The Commission aims to oversee, monitor and regulate prices of essential goods and services. The commission will actively promote economic efficiency and consumer welfare of the Malaysian economy by controlling anti-competitive practices and abuse of market dominance.
Biofuel may harm women in rural areas: FAO The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is calling on nations to look into developing biofuel strategies that will harm rather than benefit the women living in rural areas. According to study conducted by FAO, converting agricultural lands for biofuel production could force women out of the lands used for farming, and harm their ability to provide food. In addition, the increased use of natural resources such as water and firewood for biofuel production means less of those resources will be available for use by women, who already have to travel long distances for collecting such materials. FAO also urges that biofuel development strategy has to be environmentally sustainable and pro-poor and should protect the agricultural activities of small farmers, especially women. For the developing countries, the practice of transforming food crops such as wheat and maize into agricultural fuel can prove to be detrimental as hungry people will be denied their right to food.
The INFONET-BioVision farmer information platform launched in East Africa In one of the major initiatives, the African Insect Science for Food and Health, Nairobi, Kenya and the Biovision Foundation launched an Internet platform that will give farmers in East Africa free access to information on sustainable control of disease vectors and pests.. The INFONET-BioVision Information platform aims to strengthen sustainable development of farmers and rural communities in East Africa by making information on key topics available through an Internet platform and other creative solutions and dissemination strategies. The platform will provide local and locally relevant information with contributions of farmer groups, local experts and international scientists on; organic agriculture and crop husbandry for food security, effective ecological prevention and control of plant, human and animal targeting pests and diseases, simple and environmentally safe technologies and approaches to improve your life and generate income while at the same time protecting the environment and the natural resources. The information platform will be used as a resource pool for disseminating information through active cooperation with partner organisations, local farmers and women’s groups.
Send in your announcements to i4d news Readers are invited to send briefings of international development news for coverage in the i4d magazine. The books, reports, studies, publications brought out by international development agencies that have a global bearing are welcome. We welcome feedback from our readers of the value of these pages. If you have suggestions of improving the readership value, please send an email to info@i4donline.net
Check out www.e-Agriculture.in for daily news updates i4d | May 2008
Parallel Tracks
29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi
Organisers
Co-Organisers
Supporting Partners
www.eINDIA.net.in
Key Speakers 2007 Adrian Hall Director of Mobile Learning Steljes Ltd., UK
Kuldeep Nagi Asst. Director, e-Learning Assumption University Thailand
Asha Swarup Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India
Astrid Dufborg Executive Director, Global eSchools and Communities Initiatives (GeSCI), Dublin Ireland
K.S. Lasith Gunawardena Lecturer, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka
Dr. Basheerahmed Shadrach Sr. Programme Officer telecentre.org/IDRC India
Buckley Dan Principal Consultant, Cambridge Education England, UK
Michael Clarke Head ICT4D, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada
Isabel Guerrero Country Director – India World Bank
Cho Cheung Moon Director, Global Cooperation and Planning Team, Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion (KADO) Korea
Mike Erlin Regional Vice President Blackboard, UK
Jainder Singh Secretary, Department of IT Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Government of India
Chris Thatcher Director, SE Asia Educational Development, Cambridge Education, Thailand
Nancy Knowlton CEO, SMART Technologies Canada
J Satyanarayanan CEO, National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) India
Gerolf Weigel Head - ICT4D, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Berne Switzerland
Shammema Parveen Knowledge Officer, Edutech Middle East
Dr. Maxine Olson UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative (India Head)
Harsha Liyanage Managing Director- Fusion Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka
Dr. Subarna Shakya Executive Director, National Information Technology Center, Ministry of Environment, Science & Technology, Govt. of Nepal
S Khuntia Joint Secretary, Department of Secondary Education and Literacy, Ministry of HRD Government of India
K.M.Taj-Biul Hasan Producer (TV & Radio) Media Centre, Bangladesh Open University, Bangladesh
Dr. Youn-Min Park Manager, KADO Korea
Dr. William Dar Director General, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Topics (ICRISAT), India
eINDIA2008: Introduction Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) announces and invites you to join the premier ICT4D (Information and Communication Technology for Development) event - ‘eINDIA2008’. The event aims to examine the myriad challenges, which appear in integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to different spheres of life, to share and work together, to analyze and assess, as well as to work towards realising a technology enabled knowledge society.
The eINDIA2007 Conference and Exhibition attracted more than 1200 participants from around 50 countries representing all continents, making it India’s largest ICT4D conference.
Programme Advisory Board Chair
eINDIA2008 (http://www.eINDIA.net.in), fourth annual ICT4D forum in India will be convened at New Delhi, India from 29th to 31st July 2008. The three day forum aims to render active conferencing, networking and showcasing, while organising six seminal tracks- egov INDIA, Digital Learning INDIA, Telecentre Forum INDIA, eHealth INDIA, mServe INDIA, eAgriculture INDIA, and the i4d film festival As an international event, apart from the general public and the media, the eINDIA2008 Conference and Exhibition expects to bring together
Co-Chair
R Chandrashekhar
S Khuntia
Additional Secretary, DIT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India
Joint Secretary, Department of Secondary Education and Literacy, Ministry of HRD, Government of India
discuss and exchange knowledge and ideas that will shape the future of global ICT development. The Conference offers a perfect platform for establishing and fostering high level networking contacts with leading representatives of the world’s ICT sector on both governmental and business levels.
Conference Objectives The conference aims to: •
The Venue: Pragati Maidan
eINDIA2007 featured the work of more than 300 speakers, addressing all forms of technology-enhanced knowledge needs, including a rich mix of themes, topics and a variety of session formats. 2000 high level representatives of the ICT industry, government, civil society, academia, and the private sector, from all across the globe to share the best practices and digital opportunities for development, to
•
• •
Provide a collaborative forum to participants to share knowledge and ideas, enabling them to develop cross-sectoral contacts and partnerships, as well as to enhance their knowledge, expertise, and abilities; Give a reference framework for describing impact, and looking at approaches and methods currently used in the ICT4D sector, and their suitability; Highlight barriers of ICT integration in India and for other countries, and identify gaps in current research; Synthesise the main results of experience sharing and the progress made in recent years to provide a baseline for discussion with policy makers, and community of practitioners.
Exhibition
Organiser
The programme will feature an Exhibition and Demonstration area, where leading international ICT4D players, manufacturers, suppliers and service providers shall present their latest products and services. Participants will evaluate the exhibition as a critical meeting point for professional interaction within the conference.
C e n t r e f o r S c i e n c e, D e v e l o p m e n t a n d M e d i a S t u d i e s (www.csdms.in) is a leading Asian non-governmental institution engaged in advocacy, research and community building in eGovernment, ICT for Development, and knowledge management issues, through capacity building and media initiatives.
EXHIBITION FLOOR PLAN Hall No. 11 & 10 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi Important Links Abstract Submission: www.eINDIA.net.in/abstract Registration: www.eINDIA.net.in/register
Contact e-gov Gautam Navin +91-9818125257 Email: egov@eINDIA.net.in Digital Learning Siddharth Verma +91-9811561645 Email: DL@eINDIA.net.in eHealth Dipanjan Banerjee +91-9968251626 Email: eHealth@eINDIA.net.in mServe Nilakshi Barooah +91-9911142973 Email: mserve@eINDIA.net.in eAgriculture Subir Dey +91-9818687618 Email: eAgriculture@eINDIA.net.in Indian Telecentre Forum Vignesh S +91-9999654458 Email: ITF@eINDIA.net.in
A SPECIAL ONLINE FORUM: ‘MAKING E-AGRICULTURE WORK THROUGH PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP IN ASIA’, 10-28 MARCH 2008, KATALYST AND FAO
ICT potentials in agriculture This draft report is a summary of the online discussions and deliberations on eAgriculture.org. The online discussion forum was conducted and sponsored by Kataylst, Bangladesh in coordination with Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UN. This is the concluding part of the report continued from i4d April 2008. Outcome of the report will be put up before World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) follow-up Action meetings to be held in May 2008. The final report will be presented in the eAgriculture track of eINDIA 2008 event scheduled between 29th-31st July 2008 at New Delhi, India.
Case 2: e-Haat Bazaar, Nepal An example of Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Commerce, the Nepali e-Haat Bazaar (www.b2b.com.np) is a joint initiative of the Rural Urban Partnership Programme (RUPP) of the Ministr y of Local Development and UNDP, High Level Commission for Information Technology of the Government of Nepal and the Agro Enterprise Centre (AEC) and the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI), an apex body of the Nepali private sector. e-Haat Bazaar is a portal which promotes market linkages and enables Nepali growers and producers to explore opportunities within and beyond Nepal. The initiative is linked to www.agripricenepal.com, a website which provides daily agriculture market price information to farmers, traders and the wider business community. Agripricenepal. com is an initiative of RUPP, AEC and FNCCI and is coordinated with the Market Development Division (MDD) of May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
Department of Agriculture of Government of Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. The portal provides market prices and relevant information from 11 major markets from around the country and more than 100 agriculture produce are profiled. Information on this initiative is limited, but some lessons published on the RUPP website include: the initiative that gave positive exposure to local entrepreneurs and municipalities and village development committees to the potential of ICTs; digitally supported B2B business models that can be customised to suit small and micro-entrepreneurs; capacity gap of local institutions and the novelty of the eBusiness as a concept result in slow uptake of the initiative.
Case 3: Farmers’ Home, China In Lanxi, China there is a community information centre called the ‘Farmers’ Home’ run by government entities (the local agriculture, forestry and fisheries conservation bureaus) with private sector involvement. ‘Farmers’ Home’ provides a ‘one-stop shop’ where the community can obtain real-time market prices, agriculture related information and extension services
from trusted sources, and learn about new farming input products and purchase input products to which they would not otherwise have access to. ‘Farmer’s Home’ is one of the several models of successful e-Agriculture found in China. Its PPP component is somewhat unique. ‘Farmer’s Home’: • Creates a win-win situation by enabling the private sector to promote its products and the public sector to recoup some costs of running the centre and provide the community with information and products • Generates content (that is considered both timely and of good quality by the community) for the agro-business community. The onsite presence of government staff and their access to digital information (e.g. China Agricultural Information Network) facilitates the process of content generation and content development • Promotes awareness through various modes of communication (Internet, local newspaper, etc).
Case 4: www.ruralinfobd. com, Bangladesh WIN Inc, a private sector firm specialising in content and information service development, is working with Grameen Phone Community Information Centres
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(CIC) to develop appropriate information and advisory services for rural farmers in Bangladesh. With initial assistance from a development project, WIN has successfully developed information for the CICs in native language, Bangla. Farmers avail of information from the CICs where the centre operators consult www.ruralinfobd.com for appropriate information and advisory services. For additional queries, WIN provides solution through e-Mail or mobile phone to the centres. WIN has a contract with Grameen Phone which requires them to regularly update the content. WIN employs the services of a panel of government and private sector experts that validates and authenticates the information. WIN and Grameen Phone make public information on agriculture available to the wider communities where the centres charge for the cost of access. The 550-plus CICs (www. gpcic.org) are franchises of Grameen Phone and each centre is owned by a local entrepreneur. This is an example of how private sector can efficiently distribute information hitherto confined to the public domain. Low awareness among the farmers, reliability of information and developing real-time, market price information service are some of the challenges WIN is facing.
Case 5: www.gotoknow.org, Thailand Gotoknow.org is Thailand’s biggest online knowledge sharing platform and a web blog community of around 30,000 active members. A good number of the bloggers are agricultural professionals and IT savvy farmers. Agricultural knowledge sharing is also in various stages such as experimentation of farming technique, using blog as journal and peer review mechanism, policy discussion over sustainable agriculture, basic agricultural knowledge sharing and much more. The members consist of multidisciplinary groups from agricultural experts and farmers to health professionals and academicians. There are cases of farmers finding experts and vice versa in order to engage in intensive knowledge sharing and, more important, is the case of local farmers acquiring scientific information from academicians to significantly improve their agriculture practice methods in the Northeast of Thailand. Gotoknow.org is supported by various groups such as UsableLabs, Knowledge Management Institute of Thailand, TRN Institute and INET (representing public, civil society, academia and private sectors). Lessons from gotoknow.org includes: • Facilitating bottom-up knowledge sharing- The site allows users to blog on topics they are interested without major structure (such as in online forum technology). Users use tags ‘folksonomy’ rather than structured taxonomy in categorising their content • Fostering virtual community leaders to bring more and more people to share knowledge- The site promotes quality bloggers who share experience and builds their sense of community leadership, thus, providing them incentive to bring more individuals into the virtual network • Encouraging decentralised interconnection among membersMembers are encouraged to get to know, communicate and interact among themselves without intervention or permission from the site owner in order to maximise interconnection of people with shared interest which results in a stronger virtual community and partnership among members
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•
Diversifying membership- Members are from many professions rather than only agriculture or knowledge management professionals allowing for multi-perspective agricultural knowledge sharing. The case studies show that for PPP in e-Agriculture to be successful there has to be a win-win for all involved; the service must be localised (language, delivery mode etc.) and accessible for the intended beneficiaries; information in public domain can be delivered through private channels; awareness issue should be dealt with in context specific manner; and authenticity, timeliness and quality of information is essential.
Summary: Week III discussion Week III online discussions focused on reviewing the key points and content identified in Weeks I and II and sought a more indepth review of those priority areas. The deliberations in the online forum also focused on where the e-Agriculture community should consider going next with PPP, and how the valuable output from this forum can be further disseminated.
Content and operational issues The points discussed are categorised as follows: Win-win in PPP Striking a win-win situation is a key to make public-private partnerships work. This requires practitioners to: • Clearly spell out roles and responsibilities and address the interests of the parties involved along with their explicit commitments toward a common goal • Understand different incentives that drive the public and the private sectors: private sector has a profit motive for adding value and growing its customer base, which needs to be reconciled with the public sector’s interest of reaching large numbers of the intended beneficiaries. Both can be combined to form a common vision • Understand the roles of the parties and their core competence: on one hand, the public sector generates a lot of useful information and on the other, the private sector could create a sustainable delivery mechanism by creating and developing the market for the information and related services. For example, in Bangladesh, the agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture such as the Department of Agriculture Marketing (DAM) or Agriculture Information Services (AIS) have the latest information and are mandated to provide them to the wider public. They could partner with the privately owned tele-centres and enrich the database and the private sector can expand its service offer. (Public information, private channels of delivery) • Ensure sustainability through a long-term commitment from public sector to the provision of quality public services and willingness of the private sector to invest, share and manage potential risks. Content development While there seems to be a lot of information lying around in the different government agencies and research institutes, there i4d | May 2008
is a need for the information to be sifted, collated and digitised properly for the beneficiaries to consume. The link between information sources (government agencies, academia) and content developers needs to be institutionalised. Furthermore the process of information or content development requires careful review and useful information. Information need to be SMART (Specific Measurable Accurate Relevant Timely); need-based; demand driven; based on local language; Validated, authenticated by experts, credible institutions and tested with the users; digitised and hosted on a website, stored on PCs, CD ROMs etc. and hard copies made available like rice production technology information of IRRI that is made available in simple fact sheets. Awareness creation During the course of discussion, there were several recommendations made on how to popularise the ICT-based services in agriculture and agro-business activities. These are: • to use simple activation tools like awareness camps, brochures and pamphlets in local languages • to ensure on-site, hands-on demonstration of the technology (laptop, mobile phone etc.) highlighting the benefits • to build capacity of the information service providers to process information and articulate the service benefits to the target • to organise community gatherings to mobilise agriculture communities with the help of NGOs and their networks • to identify use locations—such as market places (rural haats) and storage facilities—where farmers congregate • to use media such as radio and theatre to convey messages • to ensure word-of-mouth promotion through input suppliers (e.g. seed vendors). Measuring impact Some of the indicators to measure impact were suggested as follows: • Increase in awareness levels
• • • • • •
Replication, crowding-in of the existing model Increase in income levels Demand for new services Improvements in livelihoods Increase in services usage Benefits derived from the services
Suggestions and resolutions The forum suggested that the virtual discussion should be continued in the future but needs to be complemented with face-to-face interactions in different events. For instance, it was suggested that the e-Agriculture community disseminate the findings of the forum in upcoming events such as: • e-Agriculture INDIA 2008 Conference - New Delhi, India, 29-31 July 2008 • Joint Conference of IAALD, AFITA and WCCA World Congress 2008, Tokyo, Japan, 24-27 August 2008. It was also suggested that the e-Agriculture community form rural e-Agrinetworks attached to strong grass root level organisations, should conduct need assessment surveys, identifying suitable partners and priority areas. This could be linked up to regional initiatives. The need for a common and comprehensive Portal/Gateway for the agricultural community was discussed. Considering the efforts needed to develop such a portal and ensure its sustainability, it was suggested that a PPP model would perhaps be the best option. The key objectives of such portal could be • Emerge as a ‘One Stop’ portal to meet most of the knowledge sharing and information needs of the agricultural community • Ensure sustainability through wide coverage and allow service providers the option for revenue generation • Provide multilingual capability and options for customisation to suit regional/country specific needs • Offer features that go beyond static content to assist farmers in decision making and e-Commerce so that the portal is useful, popular and actively used.
Maldives pleads human rights body to study climate change Maldives, the island nation, is set to take proactive steps towards protecting its very existence, which it fears is threatened by global warming. Foreign Minister of Maldives, Abdulla Shahid, feels it is very important that the Human Rights Council start addressing the issue of climate change. The Indian Ocean archipelago, which says it risks losing its entire territory to rising sea levels, leaving its 360,000 inhabitants with no place to go, drummed up enough support in a key U.N. body to request a study on the impact of climate change on human rights. Shahid pleaded the council’s work to be complementary to other U.N. organisations dealing with climate change, such as the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The 47-nation council said in the document adopted by consensus that it is ‘concerned that climate change poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights.’ The Maldives, which consist of 1,200 islands, were joined by other small island countries such as the Fiji Islands and Tuvalu in offering the resolution. They have said they risk disappearing altogether if global warming continues unabated and the world would see hundreds of thousands of stateless people who have nowhere to go, no government to protect them or to deliver basic services. Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/28/news/UN-GEN-UN-Rights-Climate-Change.php
May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
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ADVANCED CONFIGURATION POWER INTERFACE (ACPI), UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, UK
Power management in networked desktops The University of Oxford is trying to devise a comprehensive power-management mechanism that will not only save substantial amounts of electrical energy but will also reduce carbon emissions Daniel Curtis
Evaluation Lead on the Low Carbon ICT project Oxford Environmental Change Institute daniel.curtis@ouce.ox.ac.uk Howard Noble
Lead of research projects, Computing Services howard.noble@oucs.ox.ac.uk
University of Oxford, United KIngdom
Managing power and socialising controls It has long been possible to switch desktop computers into low power modes such as ‘standby’ and ‘hibernate’ to save electrical energy. However, in networked environments, ICT management practices have emerged that prioritise concerns relating to the installation of software patches, hardware failure due to switching computers on and off frequently, interruption of back-up services that preserve a users’ data remotely, and convenience for computer user in terms of avoiding the time taken to reboot the operating system, above those of saving energy. The University of Oxford, with support from the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) Institutional Exemplars programme is undertaking an 18 month project to develop an open source software that will allow institutions to enable desktop power management in such a way as to inconvenience neither the end-user nor the staff managing an organisation’s ICT infrastructure.
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Specifically the project will develop software to enable: • System administrators to be able to switch clusters of machines on and off depending on the policy in place for energy saving in their department and requirements to update system software on desktop machines • End-users to switch off their desktop machines whenever they are not in use e.g. at the end of the working day and weekends, when working on other sites (e.g. external laboratories and conferences), and when on holiday. Importantly the user will be able to switch their machines back on remotely, so accessing files stores on their hard drive • Research teams to wake batches of computers from the existing desktop computer infrastructure across the University to perform calculations relating to their studies.
The WoL support The project will develop and deploy a Wake-on-LAN (WoL) service that enables the devolved ICT management structure of the University to implement power management policies within colleges and departments. The service will work with Apple, Linux and Windows operating systems, tackle the difficult issue of sending the ‘magic’ (WoL) packet across firewalls, work with existing networking services such as software update management, backup and GRID computing management tools. The proposed institution-wide WoL service can also reduce the energy consumed by projects operating computationally intensive research. Such projects will be able to wake batches of desktop machines to perform calculations necessary for important research, such as climate predication experiments. Therefore, the WoL service will provide the University
ACPI The Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI), introduced in 1996, is the industrial specification for computer power management. It consists of six power states, S0 to S5; the main aspects of these power states are summarised in the table below. ACPI
Description
Wake-up time
Typical PC power demand
working state or ‘on-idle’ soft standby – hard drive powered down
none
high (80 to 120W)
2-3s
high (75W)
S2
as above with power to CPU cut
3-4s
fairly high (70W)
S3
only the RAM receives power
5-6s
low / v. low (4W)
S4
hibernate – save to disk and power down
20-30s
very low (2W)
S5
power down – minimal standby state
>30s
very low (2W)
S0 S1
i4d | May 2008
with additional computing capacity through exploiting existing resources. It is important to remember that purchasing hardware causes a considerable cost in terms of energy consumption through the manufacturing and transport processes. (Williams, 2004, Energy Intensity of Computer Manufacturing: Hybrid Assessment Combining Process and Economic Input--Output Methods, Environmental Science and Technology). While it is possible to buy computers that are much more efficient than previous models, an institution will need to plan the frequency with which it buys new equipment to ensure that local gains are not detrimental to the global effort to reduce the impact of human activity on the environment. Efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle computer equipment will be key to addressing this objective.
Scaling energy efficiency The success of the project will be measured by the amount of energy we save as a result of rolling out WoL management facilities and the use of the current virtualisation service. Sustainability is a complex topic and we must adopt a broad analysis to ensure that the long-term effects of this development are beneficial to the environment. To achieve this, the project will draw on the significant expertise of the Oxford University Environmental Change Institute, whose research staff will develop a methodology for measuring the impact of the service in the most reliable way possible. To confirm the extent of the savings will require monitoring. A very high proportion of the university and college’s buildings have half-hourly electrical metering. This data is logged. At present, there is a tendency toward a relatively high base load, with moderate daytime peaks. The example log below is indicative of a building with its computers on 24 hours a day and shows the current demand pattern compared with the lower demand pattern that might be expected were the computers to be switched off overnight. The overall electrical savings could be up to 20 percent in this case as the computers in the building in question are permanently on.
Improving performance Environmental performance will also be improved when the University can manage its operations through purchasing less equipment. This is one of the major advantages of virtualisation (but also improved use of spare capacity throughout the desktop network) and we will monitor procurement practice with units throughout the university to measure the corresponding reductions on the environment due to manufacturing and transport. Owing to large sample size – the high number of buildings being monitored – a high degree of accuracy is expected in the data interpolation (additional factors such as changes in occupancy rates and seasonal variations will be readily identified and accounted for). Initial estimates suggest that annually, the application of power management would save the university £250,000 per year through a reduction in electrical energy consumption of over three GWh. This will result in a 1500 tonne reduction in Carbon Dioxide emissions. Applied to the UK’s Higher Education sector as a whole, the savings potential could have a significant positive impact on the UK’s greenhouse gas reduction targets. May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
Monitoring and analysis will make use of the logging equipment to provide consumption data for both scenarios: • Business-as-usual, i.e. prior to implementation of the proposed measures • After implementation of the proposed measures.
Reducing carbon emissions The project was launched in March 2008 through our Towards Low Carbon ICT conference in the Oxford Said Business School. Delegates from industry and academia shared their experience on a wide range of topics relating to low carbon computing. The slides and audio recordings are available on the conference website. The event highlighted the need for many groups to collaborate in creating and evaluating innovative products and services. The Low Carbon ICT project team hopes that it can help, together with other organisations, reduce the global environmental impact of computing. The project aims to deliver the open source software and supporting documentation by April 2009. The project website may be found here: http://projects.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ lowcarbonict/
Desktop Computer Energy Consumption in the entire UK non-domestic sector • • • • • • • •
•
There are an estimated 12 million desktop computers in use in UK offices and institutions Studies have shown that between 20% and 50% of these machines are left on 24/7: 168 hours per week Office hours in the UK are 40 hours per week This means that for 128 hours a week those computers are switched on but are not in use 20% to 50% works out at between 307 and 768 million ‘computer hours’ per week The average computer has a power demand of 80W in ‘on-idle’ mode – when switched on but not in use In energy terms, this is a waste of between 25 and 61 GWh per week, or between 1.3 and 3.2 TWh per year This equates to between 0.5 and 1% of UK electrical energy going into office computers that are not actually doing anything The associated annual CO2 emissions are up to 1.5 million tonnes
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Part I: Introduction to Internet Governance Issues Renowned 20th century German philosopher, Jurgen Habermasi wrote extensively on the concept of a public sphere – a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment. The birth of the Internet was seen as a seminal step towards the creation of such a public sphere. This ideal is reflected in Jon Perry Barlow’s “A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspaceii” which was a direct reaction to the Communications Decency Act 1996. Barlow envisioned a cyberspace which is the promise of a new social space, global and anti-sovereign, within which anybody anywhere can express to the rest of humanity whatever he or she believes without fear. The freedom and lack of geo-political boundaries may not exist in an idealistic state as visualised by Barlow. Surveillance by states over their citizens, threat of economic and political shutdown by cyberterrorists and intrusion are becoming commonplace news in the cyber era. The much discussed event of the two week shutdown of all banking, government and political sites of the most wired European nation, Estonia, in May 2007iii is a harsh example of the increasing vulnerability of entire nations on the cyberspace. The freedom and lack of geo-political boundaries may not exist in an idealistic state as visualised by Barlow but with the advent of sophisticated geo-location software it is getting increasingly plausible to trace the Internet Service
Provider (ISP) through which the Internet was accessed. Further, in most nations ISPs are required to keep details of all their users and provide the same to the authorities when required. The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a “network of networks” that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic -Kofi Annan mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW). Each node (computer) is identified by a unique number called the IP Address. However, we do not use these numeric addresses and instead use descriptive names such as www. google.com. An important foundation of today’s network services on the Internet is the Domain Name System (DNS) introduced in 1984. The DNS enabled Internet servers to be accessed by means of easily memorable names rather than numbers, and for the names to be stored in a distributed database to which all Internet hosts had access. The Internet as we know it today originated in the United States. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) controls the assignment of IP addresses and domain names. ICANN, formed in 1998, is a privately owned, not-for-profit organisation registered in the US. We will delve into infrastructure, DNS wars and alternate roots in upcoming issues.
“In managing, promoting, and protecting its [the Internet] presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative than those who created it”
www.nixi.in
In Collaboration with:
How DNS resolution works
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i4d | May 2008
Emergence of the Internet Governance Forum One of the working definitions of Internet Governance is ‘the development and application by governments, the private sector, and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and uses of the Internetiv’. The Internet is not a centralised entity. The core of the Information society does not lie in a single nodal point but is spread at its edges in the form of its users, the people. The power of the internet is that everyone can create content. This very fact is also the largest threat from this medium. It allows us to engage in electronic commerce, research, entertainment, communication and explore its unlimited resources. However it also allows spam, viruses and other harmful content to creep in. The governance of the Internet cannot be done in the traditional manner. As Kofi Annan said “... In managing, promoting, and protecting its [the Internet] presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative than those who created it. Clearly, there is a need for governance, but that does not necessarily mean that it has to be done in the traditional way, for something that is so very different”. The term governance itself is problematic when it is applied to something as multifaceted, widespread and global as the Internet. The multistakeholder polarised interests and points and counterpoints led to the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held its first phase summit in Geneva in the year 2003. The summit agreed to follow the dialogue on Internet Governance in the Declaration of Principles and Action Plan. This working group was to prepare the ground for a decision in the second phase of the summit in Tunis in November 2005. The summit requested the UN Secretary-General to set up a Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) to achieve this goal. This group was to report its work for consideration and appropriate action at Tunis. At WSIS, Tunis, the WGIG report suggested the need of an organisation like the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). After reaching a clear consensus among its members the WGIG proposed in paragraph 40 of the Report that presently there exists no global multi-stakeholder forum to address Internet-related public policy issues. It recognised the merit in creating a space which addresses issues that are cross-cutting and multidimensional and that either affect more than one institution, are not dealt with by any institution or are not addressed in a coordinated manner. The convening of the IGF was announced on 18 July 2006, with the inaugural meeting of the Forum being held in Athens, Greece from 30 October to 2 November 2006. The report of
the WGIG divided Internet Governance issues into four broad categories. These included: • Infrastructure (mainly IP addresses and the Domain Name System) • Security, Safety and Privacy (including spam, viruses and cybercrime) • Intellectual Property Rights, Trade and Copyrights • Development Issues The IGF is to meet every year. The second meeting of the IGF was held in November 2007 at Rio, Brazil. India is hosting the third meeting in 2008 in the city of Hyderabad followed by Egypt in 2009. The IGF Secretariat is hosted at Geneva, Switzerland. Nitin Desai, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Internet Governance, is the co-chairman of the IGF and has headed the past two meetings in Athens and Rio and will be heading the one in India. UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon, in his address at the IGF2007 held in Rio, Brazil, referred to the IGF as a nontraditional UN meeting and as a “new model of international cooperation and, just like the Internet, it is in constant evolution”. His message went on to say: “The Forum can develop a common understanding of how we can maximize the opportunities the Internet offers, how we can use it for the benefit for all nations and peoples, and how we can address risks and challenges”.
IGF in India This year India will be hosting the third meeting of the IGF in the city of Hyderabad from 3-6 December 2008. There are five key dimensions to Internet and therefore its governance – Infrastructure, Legal, Economic, Development and Sociocultural. These issues are reflected in the IGF’s agenda through its various themes – Access, Critical Infrastructure, Security, Development, Openness, Capacity Building, and Diversity. Over the next five months, leading to the Internet Governance Forum we indulge in the dimensions mentioned above. References i. Habermas Forum, http://www.habermasforum.dk/ ii. A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html iii. The cyber raiders hitting Estonia, 17 May 2007, BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665195.stm iv. WGIG Report, June 2005, http://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf, page 4
Other online resources 1. 2. 3. 4.
Internet Governance Forum – http://www.intgovforum.org/ IGF2008, India – http://www.igf2008.in/ Diplo Foundation – http://www.diplomacy.edu/ ICANN – http://www.icann.org/
Share your thoughts and Win a HCL Leaptop! The i4d magazine in association with the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) will open discussion and debate forum through the magazine and their portals – www.igf2008.in and www.i4donline.net. We invite all our readers to participate by reacting and responding to the issues raised in the article above. Please note that all relevant responses will be published online at the two addresses given above. Some selected responses will be published in the next issue of i4d and the best response will win a HCL Leaptop* sponsored by NIXI. Please send your responses to response@i4donline.net *the image may not correspond with the actual product to be given
May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
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India News e-Shishu project receives PM Award in Public Administration
Information for development www.i4donline.net
e-Governance e-Stamping system in Maharashtra, India
egov
In a recent initiative, the Government of Maharashtra has planned to introduce an e-Stamping system for registration of property documents at the sub-register offices across the state. To foster the introduction of e-Stamping system, the state government has decided to float a pilot project in the next 15 days. The project will be subsequently rolled out in a phased manner in rest of Maharashtra. The e-stamping system is in line with the e-Governance policy of the state. The move will enable the citizens to download stamp paper at the click of the mouse. The system will also reduce the cost of stamp paper printing, freight and safe custody. Also, as the system will provide greater control over the sale of stamps, chances of fake stamps getting circulated will be eliminated. The department will also launch a new website which will enable the citizens to carry out valuation of their property on-line and citizens will be able to calculate the stamp duty required.
Project e-Shishu, floated in Orissa has received the prestigious Prime Minister Award for Excellence in Public Administration. e-Shishu, is implemented by the Primary Education Project Authority and supports the creation and maintenance of a comprehensive database of all children ranging from newborn to 14 years old. The database details every information on Orissa’s children. e-Shishu also features a ‘child tracking system’ that registers child and guardian’s name. e-Shishu was designed to meet the goals of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and to track 10.8 million children. The project was also supposed to map around 70,000 schools and identify 1.48 lakh teachers across the state.
cities with population strength ranging from five lakh to 50 lakh. In north-eastern states, where population falls below 5-50 lakh and falls out of city limits, the government would allow some relaxations and special regulations while identifying solar townships. The government has proposed a scheme to support the initiative by providing soft grant to municipalities of the chosen cities to draw up a master plan looking at the current use of power and projected growth over 10 years. Initially, the ministry will disburse funds up to INR 10 million for planning. This initial funding will be supplemented by funding from sources like the Planning Commission for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) programme or the Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s various schemes or the ministry itself. A green venture fund is also in the plan to help the municipalities take city-wide action in changing street lights and reworking on existing buildings to be more energy efficient designs.
General 60 cities into solar townships plan on anvil, India
Health Pharma industry to receive Following the European and American soft loans from India solar township models, the Government Government of India has planned to convert 60 cities into solar townships. This is a move to reduce power consumption by at least 10% and also to move towards renewable energy resources. Under the 11th five-year plan, the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been entrusted with the responsibility of identifying 60 such
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The Government of India plans to provide soft loans (to the the level of of INR one billion) in the current financial year to promote research and development in the pharmaceutical sector. Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister of Chemicals, Steel and Fertilisers, while addressing the Lok Sabha, stated that the Department of Science and
Technology (DST) would provide soft loans of INR one billion under Drugs and Pharmaceutical Research Programme. Paswan further added that the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) would continue to carry out new drug development in parasitic and microbial diseases, anti-cancer, diabetes and asthma among others. The Depar tment of Chemicals a n d Pe t ro c h e m i c a l s w o u l d a s s i s t National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research to carry out R&D activity for diabetes, tuberculosis, malaria and leishmaniasis among others, as per the statement.
m-SERVE 500 million mobile subscribers in India by 2010 Indian mobile industry is expected to reach new heights with the number of mobile subscribers increasing day by day. A projection says that by 2010, mobiles will reach to 500 million people in India. At present the number of mobile subscribers is 240 million. After China, India is on its way to becoming the largest telecom market in the coming years. At ‘Connecting Rural communities Asia forum 2008’, B K Syngal, Former Chairman, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), stated that India is becoming the largest telecom market due to the policies implemented by the Union Government especially policies relating to universal access in rural and suburban areas of India. i4d | May 2008
ICTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Building partnerships: Addressing change Mountain Forum is an efficient ICT-enabled platform that works towards sustainable mountain development
Sani Malam Karami
ICT Specialist Mountain Forum Secretariat, Nepal s.karami@mtnforum.org
Overview Climate change is a global issue that concerns every single individual on the face of this planet. Every one has to contribute in order to fight against its causes and consequences, but one can’t succeed in any of the fights without being aware of what it (causes and consequences of climate change) is and what can one do to start or to continue the fight. The fight against climate change has to be seen from two perspectives: the developed world perspective, and the developing world perspective. Here, only the perspectives of the developing world are discussed. Raising and enhancing awareness, and building capacity for climate change adaptation is what is mostly needed in the developing world, not excluding of course the mitigation aspect. The use of ICT should and has to be seen as one of the most important motors to raise awareness and capacity-building when used appropriately. Using all ICT means and ways globally as well as regionally, one can build and strengthen partnerships to fight against climate change causes and consequences.
Building partnerships What do we have within our premises and knowledge to immediately start fighting against climate change without waiting for help from outside? ICT can bring together individuals and organisations to build partnerships and enhance networks May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
of manufacturers, innovators, media, radio, forums, telecentres, content experts, local knowledge champions, good and bad practices champions, policy makers, donors, researchers, livestock experts etc. Many of the aforementioned are already doing lots of work on climate change mitigation and adaptation using ICT applications, but this would have a greater impact if we could build a network for common goals. So far, there are millions of telecentres, communities’ radios, local TVs and locally available computer programmers/ trainers in one hand and content experts, local knowledge champions, good and bad practices champions and livestock champions on the other. Henceforth, why not work together and make available the right information and knowledge to those who need them? Same for researchers, innovators, manufacturers, policy makers, donors, and scientists. If information and knowledge can flow within the above-mentioned networks, lots of progress can be made within the next couple of years in climate change mitigation and adaptation. These
networks can build partnership for common goals as they have the knowledge, the innovation, the means and ways to implement them.
Example of A network making best use of ICT: The Global Mountain Forum The Global Mountain Forum is the only global network of networks dedicated exclusively to mountains (regions and people). Its membership of individuals, professionals and organisations from over 130 countries promotes sustainable mountain development through information and knowledge sharing, mutual support and advocacy and plays an important role in collective efforts to connect mountain stakeholders and raise mountain issues high on political agendas. Mountain Forum (MF) is also recognised as an efficient global ICT platform and the premier network in the world for sustainable mountain development, c o n t r i b u t i n g t o t h e Mi l l e n n i u m Development Goals (MDGs). Its range of services and products include membership
Sharing climate change solutions and adaptation issues The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), at a meeting held in Bangkok has given an opportunity to participants from countries in the Asia Pacific region to discuss and share their good practices and success stories on ways to cut greenhouse gases while reducing poverty. The meeting organised in cooperation with the Japanese Ministry of Environment and the Japanese Overseas Environmental Cooperation Centre was an attempt to showcase the mitigation and adaptation strategies in climate change affairs. The Deputy Executive Secretary of ESCAP, Shigeru Mochida opened the meeting. Japan’s Vice-Minister for Global Environmental Affairs, Toshiro Kojima, also tried to explore ways of helping developing countries to make adaptations to climate change part of their development efforts. Subsequent to this meeting, ESCAP has plans to launch an Asia-Pacific Gateway for Climate Change and Development.
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profiles, regional and thematic e-mail discussion lists, e-Conferences, a calendar of events, an online library and a bulletin. Mountain Forum also uses bridging initiatives to reach out to offline communities (example, through partnership with community radio, publications, face-to-face interactions, etc.). At present the Mountain Forum network is comprised of a global secretariat and five regional networks (nodes) working in a decentralised and democratic manner. The five regional networks are: • The African Mountain Forum • The Asia-Pacific Mountain Network • The European Mountain Forum • InfoAndina (the Latin American Mountain Forum) • The North American Mountain Forum
Mountain Forum’s initiative on Climate Change Why focus on mountains people and environments? Because in proportion, people from mountains are mostly affected by climate change. Melting glaciers lead to an increasing number and size of glazier lakes that are prone to build up large reservoirs and break through like avalanches, that wash away valleys and the communities that live and depend on them. This affects human lives and also reduces the capacity of the mountains to capture water. This further afflicts people living in the lower areas and adds to the already fragile conditions and livelihood opportunities: increasing populations require more fuel to cook and heat, require more land to produce food which already puts stress on mountain areas in the form of forest reduction and soil erosion.
Mitigation and adaptation strategies Mitigation and adaptation strategies are certainly important not only for the hazard-affected people in the mountains but are also important for combating all forms of change hazards. Some mitigation and adaptation strategies are: • to raise and enhance awareness • to offer and promote use of renewable energy options such as solar cooking, solar power for heating and energy, and more efficient options of hydro-power use • to foster inducing polices of government and donors with actions by communities and intermediary organisations • to monitor changes and effects to predict hazards and risks by using GIS (Geographic Information System) / remote sensing; and work with communities to prevent and deal with risks and hazards • to reach offline communities via regional nodes and information bridges like publications, especially MF Bulletins; interactive radio and promote connectivity such as telecenters with locally relevant content.
Future regional actions: MF perspective MF intends to develop a comprehensive network of partners to address regional issues and concerns pertaining to climate change. The network of partners, which is key to implementation and support of climate change dialouges is to be developed with the help of:
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Information function: widen the network in all regions with both scientific as well as civil society partners; widen on-line content of scientific and local experiences relevant for sustainable mountain development agenda and expertise through portals on mountain information. Support documenting local knowledge and good practices of communities and programs on climate change mitigation and adaptation, especially on renewable energy, connectivity and risk aversion. Communication and interaction: foster sharing of new findings and feedback at various levels; pilot and upscale bridges to local communities through radio, hardcopy bulletins and sustainable connectivity / telecentre programs. Learn and identify best practises by structured e-Conferences, focused group discussions both online and offline within and across regions; build communities; create focused group discussions for best practices tuning and adaptation, as well as for problem solving and capacity sharing. Advocacy: Link activities with communities and experts in other regions; give importance to mountains for climate change on donors’ and governments’ agenda; give a voice to mountain communities to foster conducive policies.
Discussing resilience of mountain communities In yet another initiative towards climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, the Asia Pacific Mountain Network (APMN) / International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) together with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - ROAP, the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, Government of Nepal (MoEST/GoN) and the Mountain Forum Secretariat (MFS) and with thematic moderation support from ICIMOD climate change experts, has launched an e-Discussion on ‘Building resilience of mountain communities to climate change’. The e-Discussion will continue between 30 April and 14 May 2008. The e-Discussion themes are: concepts and methods of assessing impacts, vulnerability and adaptation; Climate change adaptation experience; and Limits and barriers to adaptation and desired policy responses. This e-Discussion aims to provide an opportunity for people to share their views on how climate change can be adapted across the Asia-Pacific region. The discussion endeavours to generate knowledge of resilience of mountain communities to climate change impact. The discussion forum also intends to know about the effectiveness of adaptation strategies including the adaptive ecosystem management approach that combines adaptive management of social and ecological systems, to improve the resilience of the mountain communities who suffer due to extreme climate events. The event is a part of the programme to celebrate 25 years of ICIMOD as well as World Environment Day 2008. For more details http://www.icimod.org/apmn/buildingresilience/ i4d | May 2008
RENDEZVOUS SYMPOSIUM ON ICTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE 15-16 APRIL 2008, ITU AND MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN (MIC), KYOTO
Revisiting the Kyoto protocol The symposium is an extension of the Kyoto protocol, held in Kyoto, Japan from 1-11 December 1997. The recommendations of the symposium are also highly appropriate because climate change measures discussed at the symposium would be forwarded for action at the G8 Summit to be held at Lake Toya, Hokkaido Prefecture, in July 2008. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of the Government of Japan co-organised the ‘Kyoto Symposium on ICTs and Climate Change’ on 15-16 April 2008 with a participatory strength of about 240 world class delegates at Kyoto in Japan. Takashi Hanazawa, Senior Vice President, Director, Research and Development Planning Department, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), Japan chaired the symposium. The aim of the symposium was to investigate the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in causing global warming, and also to study the prospects of monitoring, mitigating and adapting to climate change. There were six major sessions addressing the concern: ‘Climate change: ICTs to the rescue?’, ‘Corporate responsibility: Towards a climate-neutral ICT Sector’, ‘ICTs for monitoring climate change’, ‘ICTs as a clean technology’, ‘Towards a high-bandwidth, low carbon future’ and ‘Adapting to climate change’.
Opening ceremony H.E. Satoshi Ninoyu, Vice-Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications and Member of the Upper House, rendered the welcome address. Malcolm Johnson, Director, ITU, followed with a keynote address that outlined the fourfold strategy of ITU in developing a coherent programme May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
on ICTs and Climate Change. The fourfold strategies are: • To create a knowledge base and repository on the relations between ICTs and climate change. The two symposia – this in Kyoto and forthcoming in London on 17-18 June – are a first step towards fulfilling this mission • To position ITU as a strategic leader on this topic • To promote a global understanding of the relations between ICTs and climate change through international fora and agreements; and • To commit ITU to work towards achieving climate-neutral status within three years Chairman of the symposium, Takashi Hanazawa highlighted the dual role of ICTs in reducing their own contribution to global warming and also in reducing the environmental impact of other sectors. Takashi identified three environmental
roles for ICTs, which are mentioned below: • Energy efficiency • More efficient manufacturing and • Substitution of movement of people and things
Day 1: Tuesday 15 April 2008 Session 1: Climate change: ICTs to the rescue? Session I gave a graphic sketch of the role of ICTs in the wider context of the efforts put by the international community in implementing the Kyoto Protocol and to commit to work proactively in further reductions in response to the Bali plan of action. The session was moderated by Art Levin, Head, Corporate Governance and Membership Division (ITU). Luis Neves, GeSI chairperson and Head of Sustainable Development and Environment, Deutsche Telekom (Germany), Tetsuo Yamakawa, DirectorGeneral, International Affairs Department,
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Telecommunications Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Jeff Hurmuses, President, China and Japan, Tandberg (Norway/US), Jun Fujimoto, Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo and Tim Kelly, Head, Standardisation Policy Division, ITU-T were other speakers at the first session. Session 2: Corporate responsibility: Towards a climate-neutral ICT sector Under the moderation of Kenn Cukier, Journalist, The Economist, the session estimated that the ICT sector alone shares some 2-2.5 per cent of total emissions of greenhouse gases, and the share will continue to increase as ICTs are to make a larger contribution to the global economy in future. The session looked into what ICT companies and allied sectors can (manufacturers, service providers, and users) do to reduce their own share of carbon emissions. It also looked into which are the companies taking initiative in this exercise and working on best practices. Session 3: ICTs for monitoring climate change ICTs have the ability to monitor and check climate change. ICTbased monitoring systems strengthen the cause of reduction of emissions on a large scale. To sustain the initiative to work upon reforestation, combating of desertification, protection of wetlands, etc. requires new kinds of collaborative investment from both the public and private sectors. An effort to standardise the venture, besides identifying the available tools, was also discussed in depth under the moderation of Hiroshi Kumagal, National Institute of Information and Communication Technologies – NICT (Japan).
Day 2: Wednesday 16 April 2008 Session 4: ICTs as a clean technology By replacing the need for travel and improving transport efficiency, ICTs can help reduce the carbon footprint of individuals and companies a great deal. With the mounting prices of oil around USD 100 per barrel and rising awareness of climate change, what opportunities do they create for using ICTs? Especially telecommunications for the abatement of carbon emissions in other sectors of the economy? This was discussed in the session under the moderation of Yoichi Maeda, Chair, ITU-T Study Group 15 (Optical and other transport network infrastructure). Session 5: Towards a high-bandwidth, low-carbon future Framed to follow on from session 4, session 5 was to examine the level of carbon abatement that might be achieved with greater use of ICTs. It studied the kind of targets and feasible options to work towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through the use of ICTs. The session also looked into what ITU treaties and ITU recommendations can contribute to this in expediting the process. The session was moderated by Charles Despins, President PROPMPT Next Generation Internet Initiative (Canada). Session 6: Adapting to climate change The global average temperature is expected to rise up to 2°C by 2020 despite the efforts of Kyoto protocol commitments to limit emissions of greenhouse gases with a consequent rise in sea levels and in the occurrence of extreme weather events. Unfortunately developing nations, especially small island developing states are the serious casualties. How can ICTs help in adapting to the
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new environmental challenges? How can ICT-based projects for sustainable development, which generate carbon credits, be registered under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, was discussed under the moderation of Tim Kelly, Head, Standardisation Policy Division, ITU-T Session 7: Review and wrap-up This final session was chaired by Takashi Hanazawa, who discussed the draft report of the meeting. The draft was later posted online (www.itu.int/ITU-T/climatechange) for further comment. The revised Chairman’s summary will be forwarded for review by the second ITU symposium on ICTs and climate change, to be held on 17-18 June 2008 in London, hosted by British Telecom (BT). It will also be forwarded to upcoming meetings of the World Economic Forum, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (in Republic of Korea), the G8 (in Japan) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The moderators of the six sessions were also invited to provide brief summaries of the discussion in their respective sessions, which have been used as the basis for this extended summary.
Closing ceremony A note of thanks was extended by Malcolm Johnson, Director ITUT to the organisers and participants. Johnson fully complemented the recommendations emerged in the meeting expressing that an ITU-T Focus Group should, as a right mechanism, take this work forward and said that he would make this proposal to ITU’s Telecommunication Standardisation Advisory Group (TSAG) at its next meeting in July. He encouraged the participants to submit their proposals on the terms of reference for this group, and concluded with an open invitation to all participants to join, either in person or remotely, the second ITU symposium on ICTs and climate change, to be held in London, 17-18 June 2008. Source: http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-t/oth/06/0F/T060F0060090022PDFE.pdf Summarised by: Ajitha Saravanan, ajitha@csdms.in i4d | May 2008
RENDEZVOUS CONFERENCE ON IMPACT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) ON AGING WORKFORCE, 17TH APRIL 2008, MUMBAI, INDIA
Including the aged in mainstream workforce eSangathan is a Framework Programme (FP-6) EU (European Union) - funded two-year project, that started on 1 October 2006 and is dedicated towards including the aging workforce in the information society. It aims to extend working-life and knowledge services using ICT. In Europre, for example, keeping workers longer in the labour market is a major social and economic concern due to the aging demography. The project seeks to find out if existing practices vis-a-vis the aging knowledge worker in India, combined with advanced usages of collaborative working tools in Europe, could result in new and better perspectives for the aging workforce. eSangathan is experimenting with two pilots over benefits that aged workers could draw from collaborative tools for remaining longer in the work force, with good working conditions.
The background The eSangathan Consortium organised an international conference in Mumbai, India, on 17 April 2008 to communicate the first findings of its (FP6) EU-funded project. The theme of the conference was ‘Impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) On Aging Workforce’. The conference was organised by Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) Limited, and was attended by public bodies, institutions, NGOs, and the eSangathan Consortium. The major organisations who participated in the conference included the Department of Science & Technology (Ministry of IT), Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), University Grant Commission (UGC), Department of Science & Technology (Ministry of IT), Tech Mahindra, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd (MKCL), Pune University, Institute of Defense Scientists and Technologists (IDST), HelpAge India, Anugraha, CASP (Community Aid and Sponsorship Program), Indian Institute of Education and the International Longevity Centre (ILC). There were debates on the inclusion of aged population in the information society and reflections upon the socio-economic and behavioral applications of ICT for e-inclusion of the third generation into the workforce. This apart, issues like Collaborative Working Environments (CWEs) were also deliberated in details.
In Search of an e-Inclusive Society Ajit Nimbalkar, Chairman, Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA) and former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra was the Chief Guest in the conference. Nimbalkar set the conference rolling by exhorting for a change in May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
perception and employers’ mindset over the aged workforce. He highlighted the need for monetary and occupational independence in current times. He stated that the changing demographies in developed countries is keeping a large part of the population unemployed further affecting productivity in countries like India. He said that ICT not only provides economic opportunities to the aged population, it also provides opportunities and circumstances for the aged to stay connected across boundaries. Nimbalkar concluded with suggestions for reforms and possible training and improvement of working conditions for the aged. Bharat Doshi, Executive Director and Group CFO, Mahindra & Mahindra, in his inaugural address, opined that in a fast changing working environment, there is a need to blend the expertise of the aged workforce with the pace of change through ICT. He further added that though technology can be an inhibitor or an enabler, yet in the case of the aged population, integrated technology has become an inhibitor as they are unable to cope with the new versions. Doshi stated that ICT should rather be used as a tool and an enabler to include the aged population as effective and productive human resource. Ram Takwale, from Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL), spoke about the ICT-driven move from an industrial to post-industrial society; a paradigm change fueled by technology and its power to unleash information for creating knowledge workers. He added that projects like eSangathan aims to create a connected society for the third generation population with the help of ICTs. He said, “We are moving towards the creation of Learning groups, which
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Aging and ICT
are activity-based groups that blend real and virtual interactions. Also, certain common interests and the infusion of new forms of technology and the Internet are making older people more selforganised and move towards effective and adaptable solutions. I-CONSENT, to take another example, is a consortium of educational institutions to create connected communities”. Ram ended his address by focusing on the glocal approach to move towards successful participation and survival in the new scenario. Katarzyna Balucka-Debska, Project Officer, eSangathan and EU representative in India, provided the EU perspective to the eSangathan project. She stated how this project has emerged from the e-inclusive component of i2010.
Key Findings of the Project The eSangathan project is running a pilot with Mahindra and Mahindra Limited, a major Indian corporation, with the support of Tech Mahindra to test how the implementation of a collaborative work environment could facilitate and induce efficiency in work, as well as offer a better work-life to expert retirees. The state-ofart collaboration solution created by Tech Mahindra consisted of both real-time and non-real time collaboration through interactive networks like Wikis, Blogs, Instant Messaging (IM), application sharing, document sharing, workflow etc. for a widely distributed demography of retiree experts in India. A second pilot is being run in the Oresund region by Folkuniversitetet in Sweden, in cooperation with the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. The pilot covers a mixed group of aged workers from Denmark and Sweden, applying collaborative working environment and methods for social innovation as working tools. The identified themes of interest might lead to further development projects, activities or businesses. The results of the Indian pilot methodology based on the sample survey of qualified and varied experienced retiree experts from different job locations at Mahindra & Mahindra Group were highlighted in the conference. User profiling through interviews and questionnaires based on technology usability, exposure and attitude was generated at a community site to reflect the usage statistics. The results indicated that most of the old retirees are getting adapted to technology.
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There are challenges and concerns in India over issues pertaining to accessibility and opportunity to quality higher education, professional courses and skill development. With the advent of convergence technologies like mobiles and telecommunications, the connectivity and information networking issues are largely sorted out. India has its unique set of diversities and divides, including a digital divide. Takwale cited the MKCL initiative in Maharashtra to address the digital divide issues within the state in collaboration with the government, educational institutions and private bodies. It has more than 35000 community centers to support livelihood services. Ashank Desai, founder Mastek, informed the delegates of the importance of collaboration as eSangathan for about 60 million senior citizens in India. He said, “The country is experiencing a growth rate of 8-9 percent, faces a shortage of talent, and the workforce spectrum could be widened by the inclusion of the aged population to leverage the talent system”. Ashank asserted that disability should not be considered an impediment within the IT industry, for involvement and inclusion into the productive workforce. A large percentage of aged population in the rural areas are still illiterate. Ashank also stated that technology should reach out to remote areas for providing opportunities of educational access and inclusion at the grassroots. He raised the issue that the IT industry should increase the accessibility and affordability of technology and generate knowledge workers from all sections of the society. Madhukar Joshi, member Mahindra & Mahindra, recounted his journey and experiences in the ICT-enabled working environment; where he opined that technology should not be forced on elderly people and rather be introduced at a pace that is user-friendly. Madhukar added that the third generation is ready to ride on the technology wave, the success lies in the pace of integration and changing management.
The concluding note The winding up session unanimously decided on scaling up of eSangathan initiatives (all across the country through collaborations and partnerships) in order to foster changes in the working environment and society with the help of ICT. The conference concluded with a summary of the daylong deliberations by Nicole Turbé-Suetens, an expert in the implementation of ICT-based new working environment facilitating eInclusion with ‘Distance Expert’ - a consulting firm, virtually organised, of senior consultants in new ways of organising work. Nicole emphasised the need to adapt to the changing technology landscapes, keeping in consideration the ageing demography of any country through strong research and support from leading IT companies. She applauded the eSangathan project as an effort towards building ICT support platforms for the retired and ageing workforce. She invited other organisations and institutes working with the aged to join the eSangathan project and take the mandate of e-inclusion across the country. i4d | May 2008
RENDEZVOUS CONFERENCE ON CIVIL SOCIETY REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE, 2ND APRIL 2008, NEW DELHI, INDIA
Climate change: An alternate perspective Background Liberty Institute, New Delhi and Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change (CSCCC), a coalition of over 40 civil society organisations, jointly organised a conference on climate change and the challenges faced because of the same. The event was an attempt to understand climate change from an alternative perspective and to isolate climate change from adaptation and mitigation strategies. The conference was a closed consortium mainly comprising of participants from civil society organisations. The main integrant of the conference was the release of Civil Society Report on Climate Change by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, Government of India. The report was critical of the traditional reports on climate change mainly endorsed upon and published by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report was eloquent of the non-relation between climate change and climate-rated natural disasters. The report, digressing from prototype reports on climate change, maintained that lowering greenhouse gas emissions in the coming two decades is not a cost-effective way to address climate change. It also maintained that global restrictions on greenhouse gases would eventually retard growth prospects mainly in developing economies.
Civil society report on climate change The inaugural session was chaired and moderated by Mohit Satyanand, Chairperson, Liberty Institute. The first panelist in the inaugural session was Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Ahluwalia, while sharing his views and opinions on climate events, said, “It needs to be thoroughly discussed and if it is true then it is for the developed countries to mitigate the May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
damage caused to environment while the developing countries can resort to adaptation to prevent global warming,” Ahluwalia further added that the developed countries can afford to spend the money on new technologies which can then be used by the developing countries. During the course of the session, he officially released the much-awaited ‘Civil Society Report on Climate Change’. Deepak Lal, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles while critically assessing the work of Nobel laureate Al Gore argued that the intended correlation between earth’s temperature and carbon emissions is only a correlation and not causation. He further added that efforts were on to prove an alternative hypothesis which suggests that the warming was being caused by cosmic rays that keep bombarding the earth. Julian Morris, Visiting Professor – Economics, University of Buckingham, London stated that IPCC’s claim of 5-6% increase in global mean temperature in the 21st century is absurd. Julian referred to NASA’s report on global warming which states that global warming has not happened and polar ice in the Antarctic circle is increasing.
Facing the climate challenge The second session was moderated and chaired by Ashok Desai, former Chief Economic Advisor, Government of India. Madhav L. Khandekar, Climate Consultant, Canada was the first panelist in the discussion session. He spoke about the science behind climate change. He tried to identify a causal relationship between global effects and climate events. With the aid of certain graphs and bar diagrams, Khandekar wanted to show those geophysical areas where warming is observed. On global warming, Khandekar said, ‘Humans are doing a large amount of geophysical experiments that might lead
to climate change. Climate change and global warming is not primarily happening because of CO2 emissions but is happening because of human activities’. He further added that issues pertaining to climate change are much fabricated and hyped by the media. Mao Shoulong, Professor, Renmin University, and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, the second panelist in the session spoke about climate change with special reference to governance and policy. Commenting on the Chinese government’s policy, he stated that price control mechanisms for coal, electricity and other sources of energy are not efficient ways of tackling climate change issues. He further affirmed that no subsidy on energy is a good way to allocate energy efficiently. Shoulong stressed on the necessity on the part of the Chinese government to take some immediate environmental measures. Barun Mitra, Director, Liberty Institute, while deliberating on natural disasters, agricultural production and pricing stated that natural disasters and drought have become less recurrent in the recent years. Barun added that food grain production has increased in the last 50 years and price has moderated and stabilised over time. Barun said that changes in climate events have not caused much of harm to the agriculturists and precision farmers.
Concluding remarks The conference ended with a brief note stating that there is no evidence that frequency of extreme weather events have increased, but there is ample evidence that with economic development mankind has been able to equip themselves better to deal with natural hazards. This is reflected in the sharp decline in weather related deaths. Clearly, adaptation through economic development holds the key, irrespective of whether climate is changing or not.
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Bytes for All... News/Events India votes against Microsoft’s OXML India voted against Microsoft’s OXML (Open eXtended Markup Language) being adopted as a standard, along with existing ODF (Open Document Format), by the Geneva-based international standards body, ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation), where representatives of member countries are slated to decide on the matter by March 29. The decision was taken at a standards committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_to_vote_against_Microsofts_OXML_ against_wishes_of_IT_cos/articleshow/2885776.cms
Indian Government decides against curbing piracy In what is viewed as a setback for the film industry’s efforts to stop piracy, the Indian Government rejected the recommendations of the draft disk policy on grounds that it would lead to the creation of inspectors, and thus go against the grain of liberalisation policy. For the past few months, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had been examining the draft optical disc law to check film piracy. www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?tab=r&autono=318000&s ubLeft=4&leftnm=8
Awards has been taking place since 1998. This is the first time Telecom Asia has introduced the ‘Innovation of the Year’ award, and Grameenphone CellBazaar is proud to be the first receiver of this prestigious award. www.cellbazaar.com, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/11914
Wikipedia Founder Proposes Support for Open Textbooks Wikipedia co-founder James Sanger put out an appeal last week in the Journal of Higher Education to donate money to create textbooks online that would be free for children in grades K-12 worldwide. http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080401/cm_huffpost/094418
IOSN hosts conference in Chennai with a strong focus on FOSS and FOSS-based solutions The South Asia Node of International Open Source Network (IOSN), along with Practical Action, recently organised a Round Table Conference on ‘ICT for Poverty Reduction’ in Chennai. The discussion was designed to have a strong focus on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and FOSS-based solutions. The conference saw participation from organisations such as the NIC (National Informatics Centre), MSSRF (M S Swaminathan Research Foundation), CEERI (Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute) and NRCFOSS (National Resource Centre on FOSS). http://www.efytimes.com/ efytimes/25830/news.htm
Announcements
Grameenphone’s CellBazaar wins ‘Asian Telecom Innovation of the Year’ CellBazaar - an innovative market-access service from Grameenphone Ltd., has been voted ‘Asian Telecom Innovation of the Year’ during the Telecom Asia Awards 2008. The annual Telecom Asia
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Drishtipat launches business challenge Drishtipat, a volunteer organisation working on promoting human rights and social in Bangladesh, today announced the launch of the Challenge 2008. The Drishtipat Challenge invites the general public to submit proposals on business projects for the opportunity to receive a loan of up to US$5,000 per project. While it is recommended that the project serves a social development objective, the primary goal is to create economically viable businesses that can stand on their own and grow. http://www.drishtipat.org/dpchallenge/
i4d | May 2008
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Bytes for All... The Internet Alert : A new online publication The Internet Alert is published on a weekly basis. It covers developments related to Internet Freedom and Internet Governance. Links, events and articles mentioned are summarised weekly from the Internet Freedom Bookmarks site - that can be accessed at: http://del.icio.us/internetfreedom To subscribe to the alert : http://ethreemail.com/e3ds/s.php?g=21862acb
New Berkman Study Mapping Iran’s Blogosphere Berkman Center for Internet and Society announced a major research initiative from the Internet and Democracy project. Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere utilises a unique methodology that blends computational analysis and human coding to investigate the contours and scope of the discussions taking place in the Persian blogosphere. The study builds on data generously shared by Morningside Analytics and on analyses and input from Persian-speaking researchers. Iran experts and the Berkman community provided feedback and criticism throughout the research. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2008/Mapping_Irans_Online_Public
Call for papers - 2008 GigaNet Symposium - December 2008, Hyderabad The Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) is a scholarly community that promotes the development of Internet governance as a recognised, interdisciplinary field of study and facilitates informed dialogue on policy issues and related matters between scholars and governments, international organisations, the private sector, and civil society organisations. The third GigaNet Annual Symposium will be held on December 2, 2008, in Hyderabad, India, the day before the 3rd IGF (Internet Governance Forum) meeting. Attendance at the Symposium will be open to all and free of charge. There is a call for papers from scholars/academicians who are interested in presenting bonafide research papers at the conference. http://tinyurl.com/ynsuuf
Inauguration of Bangladesh Telecentre Reference Desk Under the umbrella of Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN), ‘Telecentre Reference Desk’ was inaugurated on March 30, 2008. Telecentres in Bangladesh are regularly struggling with numerous computer related and other technical problems. Reference Desk is equipped to provide expert support online and offline. The desk will also link local technical support service providers with telecentres where only advice is not enough. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/11876 May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
Launch of Information Society Watch Close to a year after the launch of Information Society Watch (IS Watch), IT for Change is happy to announce the launch of Information Society Watch – India (IS Watch-India) http://India. IS-Watch.net/, an online knowledge space. IS Watch-India is a part of Information Society Watch (IS-Watch), an online space for South centric discourses on development and technology convergences. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/11936
Resources Wireless Networking in the Developing World: A practical guide to planning and low-cost telecommunications (Second Edition) Spread across 425 pages, and available via free download, this book promises to act as ‘a practical guide to planning and building low-cost telecommunications infrastructure’. http://wndw.net/
Executive Course on Telecom Reform 12th Executive Course on Telecom Reform: Strategies to achieve connectivity and convergence, 10 - 14 June 2008, Changi Village Hotel, Singapore http://www.lirneasia.net/training-courses/12th-lirnenet-course-singapore-2008announcement/
Bytes for All: www.bytesforall.org or www.bytesforall.net Bytes for All Readers Discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ bytesforall_readers To subscribe: bytesforall_readers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Bytes for All Discussion summary compiled by: Miraj Khaled, techiemik@yahoo.com, Bangladesh/Canada
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Books received Climate Change and Developing Countries Author: N. H. Ravindranath, Jayant A.Sathaye Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publisher, Netherlands ISBN: 140200771X Pages: 308 The impact would be severe particularly in tropics which are mainly constituted by developing nations. Developing nations have also recognised the importance of their future role in responding to the uncertainty posed by global climate change through appropriate technical institutional and policy measures. The ongoing global negotiations are in a critical phase. The book proposes alternative perspectives of developing countries on opportunities to benefit from current and emerging global negotiations, institutions, mitigating techniques and mechanisms to address climate change. The book provides basic information, analysis, and interpretation of various aspects relevant to climate change and will be a valuable asset to researchers, negotiators, policy makers, and environmental groups engaged in the analysis and discussion of climate change, mainly with reference to developing countries.
Open Access to Knowledge and Information: Scholarly Literature and Digital Library Initiatives – the South Asian Scenario Author: Anup Kumar Das Editors: Bimal Kanti Sen and Jocelyne Josiah Publisher: UNESCO, New Delhi Date of publishing: March 2008 ISBN: 978-81-89218-21-8 Pages: vi+137 The South Asia sub-region is now in the forefront of the Open Access (OA) movement within developing countries in the world, with India being the most prominent partner in terms of its successful Open Access and Digital Library (DL) initiatives. Institutional and policy frameworks in India also facilitate innovative solutions for increasing international visibility and accessibility of scholarly literature and documentary heritage in this country. This publication has its genesis in the recommendations and proceedings of UNESCO-supported international conferences and workshops including the 4th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL2001, Bangalore); the
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International Conferences on Digital Libraries (ICDL2004 & ICDL2006, New Delhi); and the International Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (2006, Kozhikode), where many information professionals of this subregion demonstrated their DL and OA. This book describes successful DL and OA initiatives in the South Asia sub-region that are available in the forms of open courseware, open access journals, metadata harvesting services, national-level open access repositories and institutional repositories. This book may be considered an authoritative source-book on Open Access development in the sub-region.
Civil Society Report on Climate Change Edited by: Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change Publisher: International Policy Press, London Date of publishing: November 2007 ISBN: 1-905041-15-2 Pages: 106 Too many things on climate change and climate justice issues have been deliberated in details. But issues pertaining to the science behind climate change as well as the financial implications of climate change impacts remain unresolved. In order to resolve these issues, Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change, a coalition of 41 civil society organisations, has produced/edited a report that speaks about extreme weather events and economic implications of global warming. Unlike the traditional climate change reports, this report argues that no linear relationship exists between climate change events like changes in hydrological or wind cycles and changes in the existing socio-economic conditions of human life. The report also puts forward certain policy recommendations in the form of general recommendations, health-specific recommendations, weather-related recommendations, agricultural and forestry recommendations, which suggest restricted role of the government in public-domain issues like climate, health and environment. The report is a compilation of background papers and articles by distinguished academicians and field experts like Paul Reiter, Indur M. Goklany, Wolfgang Kasper, Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen. The report concludes by stating that the available scientific data, statistics and current trends are not sufficient enough to provide a basis for strategic decision-making on climate related issues. „ i4d | May 2008
What’s on
Poland 29-30 May 2008 Globalisation, Energy and Environment Warsaw http://www.sgh.waw.pl/gee2008
Africa
India
Thailand
2-4 June 2008 The First International Conference on Security, Privacy and Confidentiality Issues in Cyberlaw Cairo, Egypt
29-30 May 2008 India Telecom Summit - Unlock the Potential of the Indian Telecom Market New Delhi
6 August 2008 Energy Security and Climate Change: Issues, Strategies, and Options (ESCC 2008) Bangkok
www.crime-research.org/events
18-20 June 2008 3rd National Conference on Peer Education, HIV and AIDS Nairobi, Kenya www.nope.or.ke
8-11 July 2008 2nd African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) Conference and General Assembly Lagos, Nigeria www.nou.edu.ng/noun/acde2008
Australia 29 June 2008 The 2nd International Workshop on Web Mining for e-Commerce and e-Services (WMEE2008) Melbourne www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~derrick/WMEE2008
6-8 August 2008 Government Technology World 2008 Gold Coast www.terrapinn.com/2008/gtw%5Fau
20-25 March 2010 World Congress of Internal Medicine Melbourne, VIC http://www.wcim2010.com.au/
China 5-6 June 2008 Banking Tech Asia 2008 Beijing http://www.bankingtechasia.com
Europe 26-29 July 2008 ICETE 2008 - International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications Porto, Portugal www.icete.org May 2008 | www.i4donline.net
http://www.informedia-india.com
30 May 2008 India Radio Forum 2008 Mumbai, Maharashtra http://www.indiaradioforum.com
16-19 October 2008 Green Energy Summit 2008 Bangalore, Karnataka http://www.greenenergysummit.com
eINDIA 2008
http://www.serd.ait.ac.th/escc
20-23 May 2009 World Renewable Energy Congress 2009-Asia Region (WREC) Bankok http://www.thai-exhibition.com/entech
United Arab Emirates 10-11 November 2008 BankTech Middle East Congress Dubai http://www.banktechmideast.com
29-31 July 2008
United States of America Pragati Maidan, New Delhi www.eindia.net.in
Malaysia 12-13 December 2008 2nd International Conference on Science and Technology (ICSTIE’O8) Permatang Pauh Penang www.icstie.com
15-17 December 2008 International Conference on Environment 2008 (ICENV 2008) Penang http://chemical.eng.usm.my/ICENV2008
28-30 May 2008 International Conference on Environmental Research and Technology (ICERT 2008) Penang http://www.usm.my/ICERT/
Pakistan
14-17 July 2008 The 2008 International Conference on e-Learning, e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, and e-Government (EEE’08) Las Vegas, Nevada www.world-academy-of-science.org/sites/worldcomp08/ ws/conferences/sam08
24-26 October 2008 The University of Atlanta’s First International Symposium on Online Teaching and Learning, Georgia www.UofA.edu
5-8 August 2008 24th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning Wisconsin http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference
United Kingdom 25-27 June 2008 Code Generation 2008 Cambridge www.codegeneration.net/conference/index.php
10-11 September 2008 E-Learning and Distance Education Conference (ELDEC) Islamabad
29-31 March 2009 Governance of New Technologies: The Transformation of Medicine, IT and IP Edinburgh
www.vu.edu.pk/eldec2007
www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/conference.asp
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IN FACT
Responding to climate change Communities’ effort to respond to climate change can be achieved by adapting to its impacts and by reducing GHG emissions (mitigation). The ability to adaption and mitigation depends on socio-economic and environmental conditions and the availability of information and technology. Here, ‘technology’ is defined as the practical application of knowledge to achieve a particular task that employs both technical artefacts (hardware, equipment) and (social) information (‘software’, know-how for production and use of artefacts). Both the adaptive and mitigative capacities can be enhanced by giving thrust to sustainable development. Sustainable development, thereby, reduces vulnerability to climate change by minimising sensitivities (through adaptation) and/or exposure (through mitigation). Therefore, deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are either currently available or expected to be commercialised in coming decades, assumes greater significance for diffusion, development, and acquisition to address the issues concerned with climate change. Selected examples of key sectoral mitigation technologies and practices and opportunities Sector
Key mitigation technologies and practices currently commercially available
Key opportunities
Energy supply
Improved supply and distribution efficiency; fuel switching from coal to gas; nuclear power; renewable heat and power (hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bioenergy); combined heat and power; early applications of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) (e.g. storage of removed CO2 from natural gas)
May be appropriate to create markets for low emission technologies
Transport
More fuel-efficient vehicles; hybrid vehicles; cleaner diesel vehicles; biofuels; Particularly appropriate for modal shifts from road transport to rail and public transport systems; non- countries that are building up their transportation systems motorised transport (cycling, walking); land-use and transport planning
Buildings
Efficient lighting and day lighting; more efficient electrical appliances and heating and cooling devices; improved cook stoves, improved insulation; passive and active solar design for heating and cooling; alternative refrigeration fluids, recovery and recycling of fluorinated gases
Industry
More efficient end-use electrical equipments; heat and power recovery; material recycling and substitution; control of non-CO2 gas emissions; and a wide array ofprocess-specific technologies
May be appropriate to stimulate technology uptake
Agriculture
Improved crop and grazing land management to increase soil carbon storage; restoration of cultivated peaty soils and degraded lands; improved rice cultivation techniques and livestock and manure management to reduce CH4 emissions; improved nitrogen fertiliser application techniques to reduce N2O emissions; dedicated energy crops to replace fossil fuel use; improved energy efficiency
May encourage synergy with sustainable development
Forestry/forests
Afforestation; reforestation; forest management; reduced deforestation; harvested wood product management; use of forestry products for bioenergy to replace fossil fuel use
Can help poverty alleviation
Waste
Landfill CH4 recovery; waste incineration with energy recovery; composting of organic waste; controlled wastewater treatment; recycling and waste minimisation; biocovers and biofilters to optimise CH4 oxidation
May stimulate technology diffusion
Attractive for new buildings. Enforcement can be difficult Government purchasing can expand demand for energyefficient products Success factor: Access to third party financing
Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf
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i4d | May 2008
INDIA
2008 29 - 31 July 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi
Since the Green Revolution, India has been growing steadily in terms of agricultural productivity and growth. Modern farming practices and inclusive technologies have been implemented in many parts of rural India to foster rural growth. Cellular technologies, wireless communication networks and GIS based agro-software technology are reaching rural India to disseminate vital information and updates on weather, farming technologies, fertilisers, livestock, commodity prices and stock markets. But, despite the usage of advanced ICT tools in many parts of rural India, there are several villages where advanced farming technologies and interactive communication networks haven't reached. To deliberate upon the unsolved issues, eINDIA2008 has incorporated eAgriculture track consecutively for the second time. eAgriculture track of the eINDIA2008 is designed to: • initiate inter-sectoral linkages • bring together development professionals, policy decision-makers, community stakeholders, entrepreneurs & financing professionals • provide more opportunities for partnership building, development re-organisation & capacity enhancement for the rural stakeholders • facilitate progressive decision-making, information sharing and performance improvement • aid the process of identification and vertical integration of diverse ICT tools that are employed in present day agricultural practices
Key Themes
Who will attend
• Re-identifying Policy Dimensions and Initiatives on e-Agriculture
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Key Government Officials and Experts
• Capacity Building Through PPP, Individual Initiatives and JVs
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CEOs/Management Cadre from Agri-Industry
• Role of ICT in Agri-Business and Agricultural Marketing
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Development Foundations and NGOs Working in the Sector
• GIS Mapping and Harvesting Trends
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Banking & Financial Institutions and Commodity Exchanges
• Role of ICTs in Mitigating Climate Change Hazards
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Agri-Marketing, Retail Sector and State Marketing Boards
• Precision Farming – Optimum use of Available Resources
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Agri-Extension Projects/Models and Extension Departments of Various States
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Central and State Agriculture Research and Education Institutions
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Researchers, Scholars and Agri- Entrepreneurs
• Role of ICT in Modern Agricultural Practices • Software Solutions for e-Farmers • Food Security and ICTs • Microfinance & Mircocredit in e-Agriculture
Call for Papers! The organisers invite papers on the above mentioned conference key themes. Abstracts should be submitted, in no longer than 400 words, at www.eINDIA.net.in/abstract. Last date for submissions is 30 April 2008
GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE PARTNERSHIP
GKP
A Global Knowledge Partnership Event - Making e-Agriculture Work through Public Private Partnership (PPP) in Asia: 10 - 28 March 2008 You are invited to join special online forum starting 10 March 2008. Participants from all over Asia representing government, private sector, NGOs, community outreach groups and others will be involved. The international community wants to hear your suggestions and solutions to overcome the challenges and focus on bringing practical solutions. The Forum is sponsored by Katalyst and FAO, and is moderated by Katalyst. This Forum is a lead up to the eAgriculture INDIA2008 Conference to be held in New Delhi, India 29-31 July 2008. To join special online forum, log on to www.e-agriculture.org
www.eINDIA.net.in/eagriculture Contact Person: Rajat Banerjee: Mobile No: +91-9910573590, Email: eAgriculture@eINDIA.net.in
We believe in focusing eyeballs where it matters the most
This July, eINDIA2008 will mirror the phenomenal growth of ICT in the socio-economic development of India and will provide a wide canvas for those involved in this sector to reach out to its biggest audience. From news, views and opinions of policy makers, community of practitioners, stakeholders and so on to opportunities for networking, in-depth interactions etc., eINDIA2008 will celebrate ICT for development, by grabbing millions of eyeballs, on the largest ICT event of our nation.
India's Largest ICT Event 29 - 31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi
www.eINDIA.net.in
Organisers
Co-Organisers
Supporting Partners
速
knowledge for change
Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India
UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development
The World Bank e-Development Thematic Group