Malawi said on Monday it would use voter registration cards to identify beneficiaries for fertiliser subsidies to help fight fraud, a move human rights activists said could leave thousands out.
This year 1.6 million people are earmarked to benefit from the seed and fertiliser subsidy programme compared with 1.2 million people last year.
Malawi has no national identity verification method and uses passports and drivers' licences for that purpose.
Principal Secretary in the ministry of agriculture, Andrew Daudi, told Reuters those without the voter cards will not be able to access the subsidised fertilizer.
"But this year those who did not register to vote will not benefit from the subsidy programme because it means they do not have the voter identity cards which we want to use to verify and make sure that the intended beneficiaries get the fertilizers."
Daudi said the government had decided to use the voter cards to fight fraud and the use of ghost beneficiaries that has been rampant in the last four years since the programme started.
But the decision to exclude those who did not register to vote has raised fears that thousands may be left out.
"While the voter ID card can identify one as Malawian and eligible to exercise the right to vote in national elections, the document cannot establish one as a bonafide beneficiary of the low cost fertiliser," said Udule Mwakasugura, a human rights activist.
An opposition legislator said the decision would discriminate against others who may not have managed to register to vote because they may have been sick or bereaved at the time of registration.
Monday, 14 September 2009
RapidSMS system for monitoring nutrition in Malawi gets top tech award
The RapidSMS system developed by UNICEF for Malawi allows health workers to enter a child's data and receive instant alerts on nutritional status.
The RapidSMS system developed by UNICEF for Malawi allows health workers to enter a child's data and receive instant alerts on nutritional status. It is a vast improvement on Malawi's previous nutrition surveillance system, which suffered from slow data transmission and high operating costs.
NEW YORK (September 13, 2009) — UNICEF has won the Gov2.0 Summit Award for an innovative system adapting accessible technology to better monitor the health and nutritional status of children in Malawi.
RapidSMS is UNICEF's open–source platform for data collection, logistics coordination and communication, allowing any mobile phone to interact with the web. The technology directly responds to one of the biggest challenges facing UNICEF's field operations–access to accurate, timely and actionable information.
Best thing I've seen
The technology was presented at the Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase in Washington DC, where an audience of about 600 academics, entrepreneurs, journalists and representatives from non-profit organizations and government agencies voted for their favorite projects.
RapidSMS won in the category of Government as a Provider and received high praise from attendees, many of whom posted reactions via Twitter.
As one post from "ilabra" said: "Rapid SMS unicef talk is the best thing I've seen at Gov2.0. real problems, code production and a floss [free license and open source software] project. A generative pattern. Well done."
A child's arm circumference is measured to establish one of the indicators that will be transferred by RapidSMS to establish nutritional status.
UNICEF deployed RapidSMS in mid–2009, in partnership with the Government of Malawi and Columbia University. The technology was designed to address constraints within the national Integrated Nutrition and Food Security Surveillance System in Malawi. Among those constraints were slow data transmission and incomplete or poor–quality data.
Traditional nutrition surveillance systems—like the one previously used in Malawi—require health workers to record indicators such as each child's age, height, weight and upper–arm circumference. Then they have to send the information to the Ministry of Health, where it must be manually entered into a database before analysis can take place.
Using this approach, however, there is no immediate feedback loop, no direct response for children, no dynamic modeling or reaction. Thus, the data gets stale and erodes the value of the analysis.
Real–time information
In the new RapidSMS system, health workers enter the data as a text message/SMS on their cell phones. They send this text message to the local RapidSMS number, and the data set is mapped and graphed, giving the government real–time information that it can immediately use to pinpoint problems and react to them.
The health workers also receive a confirmation text message from RapidSMS, which provides the nutritional diagnosis of each child based on the data sent in. This feedback loop empowers health workers with information to act upon.
In this way, RapidSMS is now identifying children with moderate malnutrition who were previously falling through the cracks of Malawi's nutrition surveillance system.
A winning model
"Technology is only one element of innovation," said Merrick Schaefer, the technical project coordinator presenting RapidSMS at the summit. "The question is, can institutional practices keep pace? Now that we have real–time data, how can we change our work methodologies to take advantage of it?"
RapidSMS won the Netsquared 2.0 challenge by USAID in early 2009. UNICEF is using the same software across many different initiatives, including tracking the distribution of food in the Horn of Africa and bed nets in Nigeria; monitoring neonatal health in Zambia; and even as an incentive to teach literacy in Senegal.
The RapidSMS system developed by UNICEF for Malawi allows health workers to enter a child's data and receive instant alerts on nutritional status. It is a vast improvement on Malawi's previous nutrition surveillance system, which suffered from slow data transmission and high operating costs.
NEW YORK (September 13, 2009) — UNICEF has won the Gov2.0 Summit Award for an innovative system adapting accessible technology to better monitor the health and nutritional status of children in Malawi.
RapidSMS is UNICEF's open–source platform for data collection, logistics coordination and communication, allowing any mobile phone to interact with the web. The technology directly responds to one of the biggest challenges facing UNICEF's field operations–access to accurate, timely and actionable information.
Best thing I've seen
The technology was presented at the Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase in Washington DC, where an audience of about 600 academics, entrepreneurs, journalists and representatives from non-profit organizations and government agencies voted for their favorite projects.
RapidSMS won in the category of Government as a Provider and received high praise from attendees, many of whom posted reactions via Twitter.
As one post from "ilabra" said: "Rapid SMS unicef talk is the best thing I've seen at Gov2.0. real problems, code production and a floss [free license and open source software] project. A generative pattern. Well done."
A child's arm circumference is measured to establish one of the indicators that will be transferred by RapidSMS to establish nutritional status.
UNICEF deployed RapidSMS in mid–2009, in partnership with the Government of Malawi and Columbia University. The technology was designed to address constraints within the national Integrated Nutrition and Food Security Surveillance System in Malawi. Among those constraints were slow data transmission and incomplete or poor–quality data.
Traditional nutrition surveillance systems—like the one previously used in Malawi—require health workers to record indicators such as each child's age, height, weight and upper–arm circumference. Then they have to send the information to the Ministry of Health, where it must be manually entered into a database before analysis can take place.
Using this approach, however, there is no immediate feedback loop, no direct response for children, no dynamic modeling or reaction. Thus, the data gets stale and erodes the value of the analysis.
Real–time information
In the new RapidSMS system, health workers enter the data as a text message/SMS on their cell phones. They send this text message to the local RapidSMS number, and the data set is mapped and graphed, giving the government real–time information that it can immediately use to pinpoint problems and react to them.
The health workers also receive a confirmation text message from RapidSMS, which provides the nutritional diagnosis of each child based on the data sent in. This feedback loop empowers health workers with information to act upon.
In this way, RapidSMS is now identifying children with moderate malnutrition who were previously falling through the cracks of Malawi's nutrition surveillance system.
A winning model
"Technology is only one element of innovation," said Merrick Schaefer, the technical project coordinator presenting RapidSMS at the summit. "The question is, can institutional practices keep pace? Now that we have real–time data, how can we change our work methodologies to take advantage of it?"
RapidSMS won the Netsquared 2.0 challenge by USAID in early 2009. UNICEF is using the same software across many different initiatives, including tracking the distribution of food in the Horn of Africa and bed nets in Nigeria; monitoring neonatal health in Zambia; and even as an incentive to teach literacy in Senegal.
Malawi Tobacco Traded 19% Below the Government Price
Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Tobacco in Malawi, Africa’s largest producer of the burley variety, traded 19 percent below the minimum price sought by the government last week.
The leaf sold for an average of $1.74 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) during the week to Sept. 11, compared with a government price of $2.15, Auction Holdings said in a weekly sales report published in the Daily Times newspaper today. Auction Holdings manages the country’s auction floors.
The southern African nation started setting minimum prices for the various grades of tobacco two years ago after it accused merchants of putting farmers out of business. This season Malawi set a price of $2.15 a kilogram (2.2 pounds) for burley tobacco and $3.09 a kilogram for flue-cured tobacco.
Bruce Munthali, Chief Executive Officer of the Tobacco Control Commission, the industry regulator, reported on Sept. 4 that buyers are ignoring these prices, according to President Bingu wa Mutharika.
Malawi on Sept. 10 deported four tobacco buyers, accusing them of sabotaging the country’s economic agenda by offering farmers poor prices. “They have been defying my orders to pay better prices and I have decided to chase them,” Wa Mutharika said at the time.
Malawi relies on sales of the leaf for 60 percent of its export earnings. The country’s tobacco marketing season ends on Sept. 18, according to the Tobacco Control Commission.
Malawi earned $14 million from selling 7.9 million kilograms of the leaf last week, Auction Holdings added.
The leaf sold for an average of $1.74 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) during the week to Sept. 11, compared with a government price of $2.15, Auction Holdings said in a weekly sales report published in the Daily Times newspaper today. Auction Holdings manages the country’s auction floors.
The southern African nation started setting minimum prices for the various grades of tobacco two years ago after it accused merchants of putting farmers out of business. This season Malawi set a price of $2.15 a kilogram (2.2 pounds) for burley tobacco and $3.09 a kilogram for flue-cured tobacco.
Bruce Munthali, Chief Executive Officer of the Tobacco Control Commission, the industry regulator, reported on Sept. 4 that buyers are ignoring these prices, according to President Bingu wa Mutharika.
Malawi on Sept. 10 deported four tobacco buyers, accusing them of sabotaging the country’s economic agenda by offering farmers poor prices. “They have been defying my orders to pay better prices and I have decided to chase them,” Wa Mutharika said at the time.
Malawi relies on sales of the leaf for 60 percent of its export earnings. The country’s tobacco marketing season ends on Sept. 18, according to the Tobacco Control Commission.
Malawi earned $14 million from selling 7.9 million kilograms of the leaf last week, Auction Holdings added.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
