PROJECT IMPACT

March 19, 2018

¥ The Community Based Organization

ComplitKenya  Community Based Organization

¥ The Community Project

Construction of a solar-powered Computer Lab structure in an off-grid primary school in Nyamira County Kenya to provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT) empowerment for pupils and the community.

¥ The Problem

Two major development challenges in the Nyamira County are poor information communication infrastructure and low education standards. These challenges have been exacerbated by very low electricity coverage in the county. Only 12% of public primary schools have been connected with electricity, which hinders education progress and makes it very hard for ICT development to take root in accordance to 21st Century global trends. Only 1% of all schools have a computer lab. 

 Lack of adequate financing has thus resulted to poorly equipped schools in terms of infrastructural development including access to electricity, science labs, computer labs and classrooms. Rural based students are hence failing to learn ICT skills because their communities and schools lack access to such resources. Computers are expensive to purchase and subsequently schools are not able to afford adequate resources to teach ICT skills. Without these skills, rural Kenyan students are further disadvantaged from higher educational access; lacking college readiness and thus they are excluded from economic empowerment.

 Even though, the county’s mobile phone services coverage is 92%, internet penetration and computer literacy is as low as 2%. All internet services for the public in the county are offered by a few commercial cyber cafes (about 45) concentrated only in the three major towns, which means there is no rural area in the county accessing internet services. There are also very few commercial centres offering computer services to the public. This makes communication in the county very difficult thus hindering development.

 The County Integrated Development Plan also indicates that firewood is the main source of energy among the county communities with 50 percent of the population using it, while 0.4 percent of the population uses grass, 6 percent paraffin, 19.6 percent electricity, 0.5 percent gas, 4.1 percent charcoal, 3.5 percent biomass residue and 0.1 percent use other energy sources. The 2009 Population and Housing Census indicates that only 8,913 households have electricity connection constituting about 6.8 percent of the total households in the county. Lantern and tin lamp are the common source of lighting in the rural areas at 55 percent of the rural households.

¥ The Proposed Solution

In order to address these challenges, the County Integrated Development Plan indicates that the county needs to extend electricity to schools and strategic trading centres so as to contribute to the county’s quest for ICT development, industrial transformation of the economy and the ultimate poverty reduction. While this can be done through the Rural Electrification Programme, it may take many years – even decades - before such investment is realized.

The immediate remedy is therefore to initiate measures to adopt alternative sources of energy to supplement the national electricity supply, so as to enable the take-off of the much needed investment in the rural ICT development, and thus bring quickly the benefits of the digital age to the interior off-grid communities. Solar is the best of such alternative sources of energy. It is clean and green, it is renewable and readily available.

The County Integrated Development Plan also identifies digital villages and cyber cafes as viable investment opportunities in the county.  The Solar-powered computer lab project thus represents a new opportunity to develop an off-grid solution to rural ICT education and information empowerment. The project has a self-sustaining financing lease-to-own model that will generate wealth within the community and through its sustainability model, we will be enabled to bring the educational benefits of a second computer lab to another off-grid community.  

¥ The Investment

• $10000 NWN grant contribution

• $ 2000 in kind ComplitKenya and community  contribution related to implementation, construction, and oversight

TOTAL Investment Cost: $12000

Total # recipients in first year following project completion: target 4,500 /100 actual users to date

Cost per recipient (total costs divided by total recipients): target $1.33 per person / $10 per person actual

¥ The Impact

The project impact is measured by:

1.Construction of the solar powered computer lab for the community – physical building, solar energy mechanism 100% completed, on time and on budget.

2.Number of participants using service - Information empowerment targeted for 4,500 off-grid community members including students and teachers through basic computer training and targeted training in agribusiness, value addition, business entrepreneurship, health, environmental conservation and other disciplines. Actual use less likely than 100 total users and less than 100 hours of computer time in ICT.  Very slow uptake on use of ICT lab by either school or community users. One significant contributing factor is the lack of a local champion to motivate use and provide hands on coaching. An additional contributing factor is the increased availability of smart phones as a preferred device to access the internet. Another issue was that the rural setting and general marginal subsistence activities require long hours by adults (and children after school) hunting for firewood, collecting water, tending to agricultural tasks – the net result is little time available to take additional courses in their non-existent free time.  

3.Availability of e-based knowledge resources and utilization by community - Provision of electronic resources such as licensed databases, e-learning, e-books, journals, and freely available web pages for research and education development to the general public. These resources are available to some degree through County Adult Education service.

4.Entrepreneurship mentorship for 20 unemployed youths to become solar technicians and sales agents so as to spur local economic growth.  This measure has not been met to date.  The lack of the local resource for coaching and mentoring seen as the primary issue. 

5.Business opportunity selling solar power for phone charging.  This measure not accomplished as greater access to direct electrical sources have minimized the need for a solar recharging station.

• Estimated Return on Investment (ROI) – the estimated savings or increased production value, less total investment costs, divided by total investment costs (does not include other daily operational costs).  Assuming 100 users to date at one hour per user ($20 /hour) = $2000 of computer time provided.  Constructed room  value estimated at $5000 as real asset.  Computer equipment at $300 per station x 10 stations = $3000. Total assets and produced value = approximately $10000 minus $10000 of investment cost = $0 /or break even to negative ROI when including community and project organizer contributions. 

• Project sustainability –

o   How much will it cost to continue the program on an annual basis?  Cost of a county based training provider and energy costs estimated at $1440 per year. 

o   How are the funds generated? Ongoing resources provided by county and school, and volunteer oversight by ComplitKenya  

• Lessons Learned –

o   Confirming the business case - The business case for solving the “digital divide” (access to internet in rural locations) either shifted in the time period of this project based on cheaper access to personal devices or was miscalculated at the outset.  Solution option:  better due diligence for need case by both project organizer and NWN.

o   Local community champion residing on site - It is important to partner with the right resource within the community at the outset.  One of the biggest challenges was transitioning the program to a reliable resource who would maintain momentum for the program operations in the community.  The lack of the local resource for continued promotion and customized linking of the community to the resource had significant impact.  ComplitKenya has provided its management services pro bono.  Solution option: NWN to ensure ongoing local resource champion beyond implementation of future projects. Project organizer states intent to spend more time in community (related to an additional responsibility) in near future if at all possible to provide ongoing motivation and coaching of resources. 

o   Project implementation - The managing entity, ComplitKenya provided excellent project management, completing the project on time and on budget.  Solution option: NA – organizer of project proved competent throughout the application for the grant and implementation process.

o   Community ownership of the project -  The project was introduced to the community by a former community resident who was not living directly in the community.  The concept received ready acceptance by the community representatives but it was not their initial idea and general ownership was not robust.  The school, Risa Primary, served as the host location to build the structure for the ICT but was not highly invested in use of the lab for school purpose, citing that the computer work does not necessarily fit their curriculum.  Solution option: Greater due diligence and relationship building by project organizer. Better confirmation by NWN regarding ongoing project champion in local community.

o   Broad stakeholder alignment - Other stakeholders / sectors need to be more successfully engaged such as County, Adult Education, Governmental Representatives.  While there was preliminary agreement on the need for this local resource, there has been little promotion or co-sponsored activities for the community. Solution option: Project organizer’s time in the community and interactions with authorities for whom project success is contingent.  Better due diligence by NWN to confirm this relationship building activity.  Ask the question on who else needs to buy in to this project for it to be successful? 

o   Underutilized resources – Given the low uptake of the computer resources that have been deployed, are there other opportunities to get returned value?  Solution option:  Project organizer will investigate re-purposing some of this equipment within another community location with increased interest and a local champion. Another option is conducting more eclasses on agricultural issues which would be more aligned with community interests. 

• Project replicability:

o   Has this project business model been replicated based on the demonstrated success of the prototype?

• Yes     X No

• If yes, to what scale:_ NA

• If no, are there any plans to replicate in the future:   NA

o   Will the project be replicated in another community location based on the demonstrated impact (through additional raised funds / payment for services)?  While several positive outcomes have been generated to date and are still feasible, It is unlikely that NWN would fund a replication of this project based on the marginal impact for the community. Approach of future projects would need to be adjusted to either fully (100%) benefit the host school or to fully (100%) benefit the community. A fusion of both community and school beneficiaries doesn’t seem to work well. The school seems to prefer a facility of it’s own which they don’t share with the community.