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A Low-resource Aware Framework for ICT
Service Development in Rural Africa
Anna Bon, Jaap Gordijn, and Hans Akkermans
The Network Institute - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
(a.bon,j.gordijn,j.m.akkermans)@vu.nl
Copyright c
by the paper’s authors. Copying permitted only for private and academic
purposes.
In: S. Espa˜na, M. Ivanovi´c, M. Savi´c (eds.): Proceedings of the CAiSE’16 Forum at
the 28th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering,
Ljubljana, Slovenia, 13-17.6.2016, published at http://ceur-ws.org
Abstract. Technological innovation and information & communication
technologies (ICTs) are considered enabling factors for social and eco-
nomic development, even in very poor parts of the world. However, suc-
cessful ICT deployments in low-resource regions, with low levels of lit-
eracy and poor infrastructures are scarce. In this paper we argue that
a user-centered, iterative approach, bridging the gap between develop-
ers and local users, is the path to successful, contextualized ICT service
development, in benefit of local needs and goals. Based on field exper-
imentation in rural regions of West Africa we present a framework to
iteratively and collaboratively develop ICT systems, adapted to local
needs and context.
1 Why ICT deployments often fail in low-tech regions
While user-centered approaches are commonplace in software engineering, (e.g.
[1–3]), end-user involvement is uncommon in ICT deployments in low-resource
environments, in developing countries (e.g.[4–6]). Given the high incidence of
reported failures of ICT deployments in developing countries [7, 4] we propose a
user-centered, iterative approach, that matches ICT service development in low-
resource environments with local goals, user needs and context. In this paper we
present a framework describing the iterative steps in this collaborative process.
The paper is structured as follows: in section 2, we briefly explain our re-
search approach. Section 3 discusses the proposed framework, exemplified with
our experiences from rural Africa. Section 4 presents lessons learnt. Section 5
summarizes the conclusions.
2 Research approach
The presented framework results from extensive field research in Ghana, Burkina
Faso and Mali between 2009 - 2015. A flexible, reflective (action) research design
was used (see e.g.[8, 9]), to understand and influence a real-world problem in
its (initially unfamiliar) context [10]. Collaboration with end-users was central,
and based on user-centered innovation methodologies: Living Labs [11], Agile
186 Anna Bon et al.
Development Methods [12, 13] and use case and requirements analysis [2]. The
presented framework is flexible, and can be adapted to different (high, and low-
tech) contexts.
3 A framework to develop ICT services in low resource
environments
We propose a low-resource aware framework for ICT service development in ru-
ral Africa, which differs from ‘mainstream’ software development in an industrial
or organizational setting, in a few essential points. First, at the start there is
no clear-cut idea what should be developed at all; only an idea that ICT might
be of use. Second, most ICT developers are unfamiliar with the local (African
rural) context. Third, there is a cultural distance between developers and users
(in language, background, education etc). Fourth, technical infrastructure is of-
ten deficient. Fifth, it is pioneer work, so, few examples are available. Defining
the objectives together with the envisaged end-users, and knowing each other’s
context is crucial. Therefore, large part of the system development is done in
situ, e.g. within the (rural) context of deployment, through creative workshops,
rapid prototyping, demos, and focus group discussions. The six phases of the
framework are described below:
3.1 Phase 1: Context analysis - Understand the low resource
environment
Phase 1 is about learning and understanding the context and its constraints, and
about teaming up with key-users and local partners. Because user-involvement
is key, the first question is: are the communities interested in participation and
co-creation of new technologies? Only if yes, we can proceed. Next three other im-
portant questions must be answered: (i) how is the local infrastructure? (ii) what
is the general level of literacy/computer literacy/formal education of local users?
(iii) what is the purchasing power/how much money are people prepared/able
to spend, to get relevant information?
Tools to be used A visit to a representative site, and a meeting with the
envisaged users marks the start of the field research. The research tools used are
focus group discussions, interviews and group sessions. The researcher/developer
must take an open attitude, to get as much information as possible from the
meetings. The workshop sessions are usually chaired by a local person, who is
part of the core team. During workshops and group meetings the ICT developers
respect local habits, protocols and traditions.
Deliverables to be produced A core team is established. It includes several
key-users, requirements engineer(s), information analyst (s), a project manager,
hands-on ICT developers, local content experts, local ICT service providers (e.g.
local radio stations, local ICT businesses).
Framework for ICT Service Development in Rural Africa 187
Fig. 1. A typical requirements analysis workshop with farmers in Guabuliga village,
northern Ghana, December 2014
Case: Context analysis in Ranawa, Burkina Faso A context analysis was
done e.g. in 2009 in Ranawa, a rural community of 2300 inhabitants, in the
Central Plateau of Burkina Faso. This rural village is representative for a low-
resource, low-tech community. People live from subsistence farming and produce
millet, sorghum, sesame and have some livestock.
After a walk through the fields, we did a focus group discussion with the
village chief and twelve villagers, under a tree. Translations were made simul-
taneously from the local language Mor´e to French and vice-versa by our local
partner – staff members from a local non-governmental organization (NGO)
named R´eseau MARP – who introduced us here.
In Ranawa up to 98 % of households use mobile phones for social interaction
and business, e.g. to ask for market prices in town, to negotiate with potential
customers about prices of commodities. On average 1000 - 5000 francs fCFA (2
– 10 euros) is spent per month on mobile telephony. Some people in the village
earn money by selling airtime (telephone units) in small units. However, there is
no electricity in this village. Phones are charged by a person with a motor cycle
battery (phone charging is his business).
The Ranawa community estimates mobile telephony essential for life and
work. The villagers express themselves open to innovation, to new systems of
communication and to access to relevant information. However, there is a lack
of infrastructure (electricity, internet). Illiteracy rate is high, especially amongst
women and elderly people. Communication is only speech, in local language
Mor´e. We notice an interested attitude towards new technologies. Extra costs
are acceptable, but only if new technologies bring real advantages.
3.2 Phase 2: Use case and requirements analysis - Find useful ICT
services for a community
After the first phase, several representative communities are invited to partici-
pate in the search for ICT services that they consider useful, and are (techni-
cally/businesswise) possible to implement and deploy in their environment.
Co-creation workshops are done in the users’ context, to elicit goals, needs
and constraints. During the workshops demos of contextualized systems are
188 Anna Bon et al.
given, e.g. voice-based, phone/radio systems. Participants are asked if this could
be useful. Promising ideas are detailed using elicitation techniques, and use cases
and requirements are collected. Participants are asked to prioritize use cases ac-
cording to relative expected usefulness.
Tools to be used A portfolio of understandable and concrete examples of ICT-
applications is demonstrated, to trigger creativity, to encourage brainstorming
and group discussions about possible useful ICT solutions.
Deliverables to be produced A long list of use case scenarios (e.g. 10 to
20) is collected. Then, after evaluating user priorities against technical feasibility
and cost of development, three best use case scenarios are selected for further
elaboration and rapid prototyping.
Case: A mobile messaging service for rural Mali This was one of the use
case scenarios that came out of the workshops, see Figure 2. This is the key idea:
a Malian organization, Sahel Eco, regularly invites farmers for a training. How-
ever, the invitees live remotely and have only mobiles and no internet. Several
invitees are illiterate, and not all of them speak the same language. The inviting
organization Sahel Eco has a computer with internet connection.
The use case scenario, modeled after this key idea, has a web interface to
record a voice message in different languages, and to enter phone numbers of
recipients. The system streams the voice messages simultaneously to the selected
phones. To facilitate communication, a meaningful name was given by the users
to this use case: Tabale, in Malian Bamara language this means ’village drum
that gathers all people for a meeting’. A logo was designed for Tabale.
Fig. 2. Informal sketch of the Tabale use case scenario
Framework for ICT Service Development in Rural Africa 189
3.3 Phase 3: Requirements specification and validation -
Understand a quick win
Mockups and prototypes are built for the selected use case scenarios of the pre-
vious phase, in co-creation with the end-users. We ask e.g. the users to translate
the dialogues in their own language. We ask them to give examples of local data,
e.g. local names of trees in a tree application. This aims at making the mock-ups
familiar, contextualized and meaningful.
There must be specific attention for requirements that in western countries
are considered to be fulfilled by default: e.g. when voice applcation are used,
the quality of audio must be assessed. Additionally, technical constraints can
be asked for. For instance, not every phone feature may work the same as in
western countries. Also, batteries and hardware potentially may not survive the
hostile physical environment. Sometimes, uptime of infrastructural services are
an issue. All the potential failure points should be asked for and properly dealt
with.
Tools to be used Tools are co-creation workshops/hacking sessions in which
the developers and users work together, to sketch scenarios (see Figure 2), record
voices, design interfaces, build prototypes. Users provide info for maximum con-
textualization, in content, look and feel (e.g. language, dialect, content, local
names etc).
Deliverables to be produced The information provided by the co-creation
sessions is used to improve the system, the network architecture and to revise
the UML models.
Case: Co-creation To build the Tabale prototype Malian voices had to be
recorded, for the voice-based menu. Since the target users of Tabale are from
different regions, different menus were made, to respond to each user’s own
language preference.
3.4 Phase 4: 1st cycle deployment - Deliver a working prototype
When the first full prototype is ready, it is tested in a production environment.
Technical flaws and business viability are of concern. The network configuration
is tested: are technical facilities available? E.g. Internet connectivity, do phone
interfaces work, quality of audio for live broadcasts etc. What is the uptime,
over a longer period? Organizational/technical capacity of the envisaged local
providers is assessed.
Tools to be used On technicalities: Logfiles provide information on system
uptime, on number of access by users, on the number of users, time of usage.
Logfiles may reveal unforeseen technical problems. On usefulness: interviews with
providers and key-users are done, to assess user satisfaction, unexpected prob-
lems, and to elicit essential requirements that were previously missed.
190 Anna Bon et al.
Deliverables to be produced A first cycle deployment report includes tech-
nical data on system usage and subsequent fixes. The system is released as new
version, after processing user feedback.
Case: Users evaluating Tabale system User-evaluation revealed require-
ments/issues that could not have been found in an earlier stage. Example of
issue found during evaluation: Issue: Tabale offers three options: Yes, No, Don’ t
know. The option ’Dont know’ is ambiguous. It can mean either (i) farmer does
not know if he will attend (he pressed DTMF option 3); or phone call was not
received. Proposed solution: A category ’missed call’ is added. System calls back
after an hour, if call is missed’.
3.5 Phase 5: 2nd cycle - Deployment in production environment
With all issues fixed, a new version is deployed. Now the relevant questions to
key-users and service providers are: are users prepared to pay for this service?
Does it bring value to all business partners involved? What are the revenues
over a certain period (e.g. 2 months)? Are there any (unexpected) costs for the
provider? How is the work load for maintenance of the system? Is more training
needed ? Is the documention useful?
Tools to be used Log files and face-to-face key-user interviews are impor-
tant tools. Surveys with end-users provide information on actual results. Given
common illiteracy, visiting users face-to-face is frequently needed during the
evaluation phases.
Deliverables to be produced Report on system usage and user evalua-
tions.The system documentation is made avaliable as open source, online. Doc-
umentation and tutorials are delivered to stakeholders.
Case: RadioMarch´e, a market information system in Mali A voice-based
market information system was built and deployed in 2011- 2012, according to
this proposed framework. In October 2012, five months after its deployment,
the system was evaluated with local users: radio journalists, local organization
Sahel Eco, and farmers. A survey in various villages revealed that the system
was well-used and had boosted the sales of honey in the region of Tominian 1.
One of the farmers in an interview reports a significant increase of sales of honey,
due to the system 2.
1For the evaluation report see: http://w4ra.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Web-
ofVoices-Working-paper v0.11.pdf)
2A full evaluation of the RadioMarch´e system, deployed in rural Mali, can be found
in http://w4ra.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/VOICES D5.4 v1.3-m-agro pilot-
final-EU-subm-14Jun2013.pdf p. 42
Framework for ICT Service Development in Rural Africa 191
3.6 Phase 6: Scaling up results
After successful deployments, the results will be diffused to other regions. Expe-
rience exchange workshops are organized, bringing key-users and potential users
together. For global dissemination, conferences, tutorials and seminars are or-
ganized. The global community of web developers is invited to participate in
further development of contextualized ICTs.
Tools to be used Exchange workshops will be organized, farmer-to-farmer
visits, local radio broadcasts, conferences and symposia, video documentaries,
radio broadcasts, webinars are organized to disseminate the results to respetive
targeted communities: (i) rural communities (ii) development agencies (iii) ICT
developers, (iv) local ICT service providers (v) potential business developers (vi)
research community (v) global community of web and ICT developers.
Deliverables to be produced For dissemination, video productions, a website,
popular and scientific publications, folder materials are produced. All software is
released as open-source for further development and adaptation. Documentation
is avaliable online.
Case: Uptake and dissemination After the end of the research project,
Amadou Tangara, key-user and co-developer of Tabale, continued to use the
Tabale service, not only to invite participants for a meeting, but to organize
group sales of forest products for farmers in the Tominian region in Mali. Tangara
traveled to Burkina Faso to demostrate Tabale to other rural communities.
4 Lessons learnt and suggestions for improvement
The important lesson learnt from the field research, is the importance of contin-
uous communication among stakeholders. Involvement of local ICT developers
and ICT business developers is crucial for long-term sustainability. A problem,
was the relatively high cost of development, due to a large developers team and
long project duration. However, despite high initial research and development
costs, deployment costs can be reduced by (i) building contextualized, affordable
solutions and (ii) facilitating local uptake of ICT services. Technical and business
training of local partners, throughout the development is part of the approach
to ensure sustainability beyond the six phases of the presented framework.
5 Conclusions
Extensive field experimentation in rural West Africa has shown that at least
three conditions must be met, in ICT deployments in low-resource contexts: (i)
developers obtain a good understanding of the particularities of the local (low-
tech) context (ii) users, despite their unfamiliarity with ICTs are involved in
192 Anna Bon et al.
the definition of goals and in the co-creation process. (iii) the cultural distance
between users and developers is bridged through open communication and cross-
learning. We propose a flexible framework, which can be adapted and re-used in
other (low-tech, low-resource) environments.
This paper presents results of an ongoing project to support local communi-
ties by enhancing information, communication and knowledge sharing for rural
development.
Acknowledgements. The research for this paper is part of the W4RA pro-
gramme, the Web Alliance for Regreening in Africa3. The authors thank Victor
de Boer, Chris van Aart, Wendelien Tuyp, Amadou Tangara, Nana Baah Gyan,
St´ephane Boyera, Mary Allen, Max Froumentin, Aman Grewal, SBC4D and
2CoolMonkeys for their great contribution to this research project.
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