ICT4MPOWER and SPIDER at IST Africa, May 6-8th
Submitted by Annelie Östlund on Thu, 06/18/2009 - 09:50.
The newly approved project ICT4MPOWER – Improved Effectiveness of the Health System and Empowerment of Healthcare Communities in Uganda was presented at the IST Africa 2009 conference in Kampala, May 6-8th. It was Dr Edward Mukooyo, a commissioner at the Ministry of Health (the project leading authority) that presented in one of the parallel sessions: eHealth –Applications and Case studies. The project received great attention and the collaborating partners established new partnerships for the development of the project and future collaboration. Read recently published articles about the project in The Independent (Uganda) as well as The Guardian (UK) and on the project website that is updated frequently.
Karoline Beronius from SPIDER presented the Swedish experience on ICT for development cooperation in Africa, focusing on lessons learnt and factors for success. SPIDER recognizes the importance that projects and activities should be developed in collaboration with all major stakeholders in order to get real buy-in and understanding of their respective benefits and roles. It is important to use agility both as a model and attitude; prerequisites are unlikely to remain constant, especially not in terms of information and communication development. A project or activity need to jack into the overall plan and big picture. A project which is standalone and not an integrated part of an organization’s or overall development plan stands little chance of sustainability and risk duplicating efforts or misdirecting good will and energy. Finally, the trivial is sometimes the essential component that makes a multi-million program work, it is therefore important to make room for tweaking of project activities as the project develop and externalities change.
Karoline Beronius from SPIDER presented the Swedish experience on ICT for development cooperation in Africa, focusing on lessons learnt and factors for success. SPIDER recognizes the importance that projects and activities should be developed in collaboration with all major stakeholders in order to get real buy-in and understanding of their respective benefits and roles. It is important to use agility both as a model and attitude; prerequisites are unlikely to remain constant, especially not in terms of information and communication development. A project or activity need to jack into the overall plan and big picture. A project which is standalone and not an integrated part of an organization’s or overall development plan stands little chance of sustainability and risk duplicating efforts or misdirecting good will and energy. Finally, the trivial is sometimes the essential component that makes a multi-million program work, it is therefore important to make room for tweaking of project activities as the project develop and externalities change.
Pictured below: Rustam Nabiev, Karolinska University Hospital, coordinator for Swedish technical support to the ICT4MPOWER project.
