[NAIROBI] Africa is said to be one of the fastest growing continents economically. But the continent still faces numerous challenges in addressing its developmental needs even as it strives to catch up with the developed world, according to IBM Africa’s Vice President, Kamal Bhattacharya.

In this podcast, SciDev.Net talks to him on the role of his organisation’s lab in data collection and analysis, and how this can translate into tangible solutions for Africa’s developmental challenges and policy making.

 “IBM opened this lab in Nairobi, Kenya, to help find solutions to the continent’s grand challenges in areas such as energy, transport, health and agriculture,” Battacharya tells SciDev.Net. He urges African governments to build local applications and solutions to the continent’s challenges.

IBM Research - Africa is the first commercial technology research facility on the continent conducting both applied and far-reaching exploratory research. According to Bhattacharya, the lab has been encouraging and strengthening an innovative culture, and building partnerships with businesses, research organisations, governments and universities across Africa and around the world.

For instance, IBM worked with Mobile Service provider, Airtell, to collect and analyse data on people’s perceptions of hygiene and Ebola in Sierra Leone.

This article has been produced by SciDev.Net's Sub-Saharan Africa desk.

http://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/data/multimedia/data-ibm-research-africa.html


IBM's Lab Role In Data Collection And Analysis

This week the UN released a report revealing that 17,000 homes and other buildings in part of the occupied Palestinian West Bank known as Area C are under threat of demolition by Israel. It reiterates the shocking vulnerability of Palestinians living in Area C, which covers 60 per cent of the West Bank and is under full Israeli control.

Life in Area C can be brutal for Palestinians. The UN reports that over 70 per cent of communities are not connected to the water grid, many have no electricity, and around six thousand people live within Israeli ‘firing zones’ used by the military. An Israeli-Palestinian NGO sets up small-scale renewable energy and clean water systems for Palestinians living high in the hills of Mount Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Elad Orian, the cofounder of Comet-ME, tells me “the Israeli authorities have been trying for a long while to drive these people off their land”. Withholding energy and water is part of this “political campaign”, he says.

The off-grid energy systems Comet-ME builds tap into this arid region’s intense sunshine and strong winds to produce clean, sustainable energy for homesteads and villages. As Orian explains in this audio interview, access to a small amount of energy each day can transform lives and livelihoods, particularly for women, who carry out the bulk of domestic tasks and who take care of cheese production that is the staple of livelihoods here. 


Battle for basic services in occupied Palestine

Kenyan fish farmers on Lake Victoria are using AI-powered alerts to dodge the die-offs that once wiped out their stock. Read full story here: https://www.scidev.net/global/scidev-net-investigates/can-ai-stop-mass-fish-deaths-on-lake-victoria/
This piece was supported by the Pultizer Center.

Can Artificial Intelligence stop mass fish deaths on Lake Victoria?

Global conflicts now often last longer than they did, and they are becoming more complex to understand and address. Some of the worst civil wars, for example in Syria or South Sudan, have now lasted so long that young children born there hardly remember peace. Food shortages can become severe during conflict, and people are much more vulnerable to extreme weather.

But crisis response is getting smarter, and humanitarian workers can now take advantage of planning tools such as satellite imagery. 

Images from space can help aid agencies restore food supplies, decide on how best to distribute funds and predict violence.

But emergency response during war isn’t the only time satellite imagery helps. A truly effective humanitarian response must follow the lives of refugees long after the immediate aftermath of a conflict, says Taner Kodanaz, a director at DigitalGlobe. 
The firm owns and manages an array of satellites that provide accurate imagery of human activities on the ground. It uses these to cooperate with international institutions such as the UN to analyse migration patterns and identify early warning of conflict.

In this interview, Kodanaz explores the many ways satellite technology supports humanitarian response and explains how space imagery is used to achieve aid goals.

http://www.scidev.net/global/aid/multimedia/satellites-humanitarian-work-refugees.html

The power of satellites in humanitarian work

In the podcast this week, a language map of the brain, listening for landslides a year after the Nepal quake, and the Soviet internet that never was.

Nature Podcast: 28 April 2016 – brain dictionary, Soviet internet and Nepal one year on.

This week’s ‘UN Gender Focus’ from the United Nations is presented by Janie Cangelosi.

She brings you the following stories:
- Geneva takes diplomatic approach to gender equality 
- Health needs of women and children in conflict zones neglected 
- Future “catastrophic” unless climate action is taken

UN Gender Focus: gender equality, SDGs and climate change

This week’s ‘UN Global Perspective’ from the United Nations is presented by Dianne Penn.

She brings you the following stories:
- UN embraces concept of “sustaining peace” 
- 60 million people worldwide affected by El Niño phenomenon
- Palmyra archeological site has “maintained its integrity and authenticity” 


UN Global Perspective: focus on peacebuilding, El Niño and Palmyra archeological site

For most people a doctor is probably the first port of call when it comes to informFor most people a doctor is probably the first port of call when it comes to information about how to keep in good health. Still, much guidance gets broadcast by the media, and in developing countries the radio remains a major source of public health advice.

But just how much is the impact of the mass media? Do they save lives, and at what cost? 

For five years, the West African country of Burkina Faso has been a testing ground for a media campaign designed to answer these elusive questions using the gold standard of scientific study, a cluster-randomised clinical trial. The trial targeted child mortality, treating the media as any other health intervention and measuring lives saved after three years of continuous radio programming with information about behaviours that can prevent disease, such as taking a child to a health centre.

SciDev.Net spoke to the project’s leader, Roy Head, CEO of the social enterprise Development Media International. Head explains the rationale behind the study and offers a preview of the results, due to be published later this year. 

The interview was recorded on 23 February at the 2017 ISNTD Festival organised by the International Society of Neglected Tropical Diseases in London, UK.
ation about how to keep in good health. Still, much guidance gets broadcast by the media, and in developing countries the radio remains a major source of public health advice.

But just how much is the impact of the mass media? Do they save lives, and at what cost? 

For five years, the West African country of Burkina Faso has been a testing ground for a media campaign designed to answer these elusive questions using the gold standard of scientific study, a cluster-randomised clinical trial. The trial targeted child mortality, treating the media as any other health intervention and measuring lives saved after three years of continuous radio programming with information about behaviours that can prevent disease, such as taking a child to a health centre.

SciDev.Net spoke to the project’s leader, Roy Head, CEO of the social enterprise Development Media International. Head explains the rationale behind the study and offers a preview of the results, due to be published later this year. 

The interview was recorded on 23 February at the 2017 ISNTD Festival organised by the International Society of Neglected Tropical Diseases in London, UK.

http://www.scidev.net/global/health/multimedia/mass-media-save-lives-the-evidence.html

Do mass media save lives? The evidence is in

SciDev.Net podcasts look at key global development issues and the ways in which science can have a positive impact on equitable and sustainable development and poverty reduction. 

The power of satellites in humanitarian work

SciDev.Net

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