Financing sustainable energy for all: pay-as-you-go vs. traditional solar finance approaches in Kenya

This paper focuses on finance for Solar Home Systems (SHSs) in Kenya and asks to what extent emerging new finance approaches are likely to address the shortcomings of past approaches. Drawing on the STEPS Pathways Approach we adopt a framing that understands finance within a broader socio-technical context as a necessary but not sufficient component of achieving alternative pathways to sustainable energy access. The paper contributes in four ways. Firstly, it presents a comprehensive overview of past and new emerging approaches to financing SHSs in Kenya and their relative strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, it represents one of the first attempts in the literature to analyse the potential of new, real time monitoring technologies and pay as you go finance models to overcome the barriers faced by conventional consumer finance models for off-grid renewable energy technologies (RETs). Thirdly, by applying for the first time we are aware of a socio-technical approach, via the application of Strategic Niche Management (SNM) theory, to analyse the finance of RETs in developing countries, the analysis considers finance in the context of the social practices poor people seek to fulfil via access to the energy services that off-grid RETs provide, and the ways in which people previously paid for these services (e.g. via kerosene for lighting). This also situates the analysis within the understanding of SHSs as a niche that has to compete with the established regime of energy service provision and its attendant social and political institutional support. The paper therefore also contributes to the small but expanding body of literature that seeks to operationalise socio-technical transitions thinking and SNM within a developing country context

Mobile Value Added Services: A Business Growth Opportunity for Women Entrepreneurs

Examines the potential for mobile value-added services adoption by women entrepreneurs in Egypt, Nigeria, and Indonesia in expanding their micro businesses; challenges, such as access to digital channels; and the need for services tailored to women

Education Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper addresses the issue of education governance in SSA in an attempt to shed light on the status of and developments in this area with a focus on lessons learned from various efforts across the region and recommendations on how to strengthen governance of secondary education. The paper is intended to serve as a background paper on secondary education governance in SSA which will be used to contribute to a more comprehensive publication on secondary education in SSA and the future of work. The paper addresses two key topics under secondary education governance: 1) Accountability as an important aspect of education governance, and 2) the need for enhancing institutional capacity to collect and use educational statistics, and how effective use of data can support education governance. The authors identify several specific actionable recommendations to help policy makers in SSA countries, depending on the local context, implement improvements in the governance of their secondary education systems at central, provincial, and local level

ICT Update 77: Linking farmers to markets

ICT Update is a bimonthly printed and on-line magazine (http://ictupdate.cta.int) and an accompanying e-mail newsletter published by CTA. This issue focuses on linking the farmers to markets

Innovative WASH Options in Situations of Severe Overcrowding

A rapid review of the literature has found a selection of innovative WASH options available for situations of severe population overcrowding and limited spaces. Case study information was collated from African, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Caribbean countries. As requested, a number of experts were consulted for their opinion where there was a lack of project evaluations or grey literature

Innovative WASH Options in Situations of Severe Overcrowding

A rapid review of the literature has found a selection of innovative WASH options available for situations of severe population overcrowding and limited spaces. Case study information was collated from African, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Caribbean countries. As requested, a number of experts were consulted for their opinion where there was a lack of project evaluations or grey literature

An Efficient and Secure Symmetric key used for EasySMS protocol

SMS (Short Message Service) is a widely used communication between the end users. SMS is being used in our different applications. The Short Message Service (SMS) usually whatever we exchange the original format, sometimes we used to send the some secret message like our email password, pass code and bank password. We send SMS is in original format, our traditional SMS does not secure this trusted information, so the proposed protocol called EasySMS it will provide very secure and protect the trusted information between the end users. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.15028

Expert Consultation on Market Information Systems and Agricultural Commodity: Exchanges: Strengthening Market Signals and Institutions. Proceedings of an expert meeting held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 28–30 November 2005

The Expert Consultation on Market Information Systems and Agricultural Commodity Exchanges: Strengthening Market Signals and Institutions was convened to review CTA’s investments in MIS and ACEs within a broad perspective to determine which are the more successful systems, what conditions have enabled them to function well, and how they are being used by farmers’ organisations, traders and other development partners..