How Africa tweets. Picture: Portland

Last week on twitter, this map of twitter users in Africa was all the rage. Almost everyone I follow re-tweeted it. The major fact the map illustrated was just how much South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria tweet compared to the rest. I didn't find this fact too surprising – the three countries all fall within the top 10 richest and most populous African countries. But the map did leave me wondering about the role of ICT in development more broadly.

Most of us these days now think of ICT, and the social media it enables, as a key means of stimulating accountability. When the Presidents of numerous African countries are tweeting, and when websites are launched to monitor aid effectiveness across the developing world, you know ICT is something to take seriously. ICT can also help protect natural resources. Namibia, for example, last year established an SMS hotline to report rhino poaching. There are also many examples of ICT being used in humanitarian situations.

Recently, economists have begun to examine the role of ICT in growth. A Mckinsey report suggests that ICT makes up, on average, almost 2% of GDP in several developing countries. Michael Spence, a key author of the Growth Commission Report in 2009, argues that ICT enhances growth because it transfers and builds knowledge. For example, there are now numerous services that provide farmers with customised weather forecasts and crop prices through SMS messages, helping subscribers better maximise profits. Another reason it's good for growth, as set out in this recent IMF paper, is ICT's ability to provide access to finance for people that want to start up or expand their businesses.

But few of us think of investing in ICT as a policy for green growth. Yet there's a real case to be made for it. According to estimates by the Climate Group, using ICT could cut global business-as-usual emissions by 15% in 2020. That’s more than five times the ICT sector's own carbon footprint, and a significant proportion of the emissions reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change. This is because using ICT can drive major energy, water, paper (i.e. forests), and other resource efficiencies in households as well as large and small businesses. Resource efficiency is a key means to boost productivity and profits. ICT also creates the potential for communication, and the creation of new businesses and markets even when physical transport is in a poor state. This will become increasingly important as migration from rural to urban areas in developing countries continues. ICT has incredible reach: it took the radio 38 years to reach a market the size of South Africa (approx. 50 million people), and the television 13 years. But it took the internet just four.

Also, as Google's Ory Okolloh reminds us (who, by the way, is one of my favourite tweeters – follow her @kenyanpundit) using ICT is simply fun! And the more it is used for fun, the more potential it has to contribute to serious development needs.

The problem is that investment in ICT in developing countries is below its optimal growth rate. That's why DFID is supporting governments to invest in ICT infrastructure. For example, we've helped invest in the Sea-Com cable to boost broadband coverage in East Africa - by a whopping 700% in Kenya, 850% in Mozambique and 1000% in Tanzania. That's huge potential that could be unlocked – in countries whose youth populations struggle with very high levels of youth unemployment.

But there's more we can do. So this year, as well as continuing to blog and tweet about my work in DFID, I'll be helping design a new project that could support the private sector to invest in these and other innovative ideas... Do look out for more on that later this year!

Ready to learn: with some of my students

"Do they drink anything apart from tea in England?" That was just one of the questions our students had for us in our first week of teaching at a youth centre in Villa El Salvador, Peru.

Although I couldn't entirely deny our love of tea, the children were surprised to find out that, just like them, we English folk are also partial to a coke every now and then!

However, they were disappointed to discover that we don't have the popular Peruvian beverage 'Inca Cola' which is an incredibly sugary, incredibly yellow, fizzy drink.

A love of Inca Cola is just one of the many things we have been taught by our students. Although we are supposed to be teaching them, you can't fail to find yourself learning so much from the people here and their inspirational attitudes towards life.

Forty years ago, Villa El Salvador was just another part of the desert: no houses, no life, and definitely no infrastructure. It is incredible to me that they have managed to build an entire town out of nothing but sand and solidarity.

Startlingly yellow: Inca Kola is a popular drink in Peru. Picture: arnold | inuyaki/Flickr

Despite this deep sense of community spirit, Villa El Salvador is not without its problems. Drug addiction, gang culture and child prostitution are all issues facing the youth of the area. To deal with this, the organization we are working with aims to provide an alternative for kids outside of school.

Here in Peru, it's the summer holidays, so a lot of the work we are doing is keeping young people occupied and off the streets. Teaching English has been a completely new for me personally, as I have entered a whole new world of lesson planning and worksheets.

Lesson time: teaching an enthusiastic class

The one thing that really has made it worthwhile is the sense of achievement you feel at the end of a lesson, when a class can come out with a stream of English words that only a couple of hours ago, were nothing more than alien sounds to them.

Or possibly even better than that is the sense of pride you feel in small, but important personal achievements: when that one shy child who had been keeping quiet all lesson, starts getting involved and jumps out of their seat to answer a question.

It's only been a week, and, as you can probably tell, I'm already getting really attached to Peru, to our students, and (worryingly) to Inca Cola.

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Podcast: returned ICS volunteers.

Ceri, Esi and Mohammed volunteered for ICS last year. Hear them talk about their experiences in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya in the latest DFID podcast. Listen here, or subscribe on iTunes.

The rain reminded me of being trapped at Kano airport in Nigeria described in my stormy weather post in 2010, where both dust and rain storms combined with erratic transport to make travel very unpredictable. Kano has been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the last month. The rise of Boko Haram always made me uneasy: the name roughly translates as 'Western education is forbidden' and I was DFID's man promoting exactly that! The tragic death of so many people in Kano and from the bomb at the UN headquarters in Abuja last year (I used to visit frequently) really puts into perspective the 'flip side' of the overseas development work that has been my passion for over 16 years.

'Flipping the classroom' has become a buzz phrase in education, as people explore how best to exploit advances in ICT and online knowledge. The Khan academy has recently emerged as a hot site: Sal Khan's low tech 'video voiceover' - with black screen and magic marker, guides students of any age through maths and science at their own pace online. Two million users a month now follow this self-study method and teachers can now track how their students progress. This has led to the some classes 'flipping': kids follow the 'theory' videos at home online and then in the class do 'homework', working collaboratively on problem sets with teacher support.

Flipping the classroom - the way forward?

The potential is clear in well-resourced communities - awash with iPads and broadband - but in many parts of Africa the prohibitive costs of internet access, and computer hardware makes it a complex choice on how to invest. The Zimbabwean minister of education cited last year that after paying teachers, there was only around US$2 a month left to spend on students (and not all of that was released). The Education Transition Fund was roughly able to provide each primary student in the country with a set of core textbooks and stationery for US$5 - the economics around this 'digital divide' are evident.

An impressive array of African education ministers and major commercial representatives have gathered at Victoria Falls to debate and showcase the latest technologies at the African Brains Southern Africa ICT for Education Summit. Can Africa leapfrog some of the steps taken to digitise the classroom and roll out affordable solutions beyond the elite schools?

As mass production drives down costs - Indian made tablets devices are being cited at around $30 - this decade will inevitably see a major influx of technology into African schools, just as mobile telephony is revolutionising communications and banking. The challenge in Africa is to effectively exploit the digital world in ways from which all children can benefit.

The Tigoung Nonma office - our work place for the next three months

On Wednesday we visited the Tigoung Nonma 'headquarters'. After turning off the main road into a dusty street scattered with stalls, shops, old cars and many staring faces, we were greeted by a fabulously dressed woman. Zenabou, the General Secretary of Tigoung Nonma was dressed in a deep yellow and green two-piece skirt and top, with a matching head turban.

She led us into a tiny room where the majority of space was occupied by a large desk full of papers and on top of which was what appeared to be the first computer ever invented. Crafts were stacked up in all corners of the room. We used every inch of space to fit the eight of us in, along with five members of Tigoung Nonma. Two members of the team participated in the meeting through the doorway.

Leonie and Zenabou in the Tigoung Nonma office

We discovered that Tigoung Nonma was created by artisans with disabilities, as an offshoot of 'Handicap solidaire Burkina Faso' (French website) - an advocacy group for people with disabilities.

The co-operative works with 64 artisans in order to respond to their needs, promote their work and, crucially, create selling opportunities - all while raising awareness of the benefits of fair trade in the national and international market. Whenever they have the time and the funds, each artisan brings his or her products to Tigoung Nonma in the centre of Ouagadougou. The co-operative believes that the artisans should receive a fair price for their intricate and skilled work; therefore each member receives 80% of the sale price of their goods.

A local man speeds home - Ouagadougou

Following on from our visit, four of the key board members from Tigoung Nonma met with us again a few days later to discuss our objectives and work over the next three months.  As we finished early we spent about an hour chatting. I was sitting next to the fantastically named vice president, Evariste.

At first I felt a little restricted by the language barrier, but I have taken the stance that I should embrace the embarrassment that will follow my 'French'. I started chatting with Evariste and by the end of the hour I felt that he and I had really bonded. He taught me many new, exciting words and phrases in Moore, including, "Wend na ko sid songa" which means, "God willing one day I'll get a good man".

Like the rest of the members of Tigoung Nonma, Evariste is physically disabled: he has no legs. Due to lack of education and the stigma associated with physical and mental disability in Burkina Faso, living with a disability like Evariste's makes it near impossible to find work. It's why organisations such as Tigoung Nonma are so crucial for the country.

We spent the first 11 days of our trip to Bangladesh in the capital city of Dhaka which, though dusty and busy, is full of wonderful bright colours. After a day of rest at the guesthouse and a long journey in a hectic traffic jam (they really are as severe as everyone had warned), we eventually made it to our first stop: the Liberation Museum. Here we learnt about Bangladesh's War of Independence and its struggle against West Pakistan.

After a little more sightseeing and some interesting visits to local development projects, we began our training from Dhaka University's Centre for Disaster and Vulnerability Studies. There are eight UK volunteers in the Bangladesh team and we are divided into three areas to co-ordinate with VSO Bangladesh's 'model village' concept. This work plan seeks to establish good practice in each of the villages and to then be able to apply these to other rural areas of Bangladesh. During the training we learnt about the practical development tools we could use to map good practice and assist us in designing our projects. We also heard about the activities of previous ICS volunteers in the villages so that we could decide how best to continue.

The Liberation War Museum, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Picture: taylorandayumi/Flickr

Joining us on our placements are students from Dhaka University and local youth volunteers from each village, which makes for a great combination of backgrounds and perspectives. The focus of each of the projects varies, but I am in the north-west and working closely with the youth club to establish a successful dairy farming co-operative.

We received a very warm welcome from the whole village on arrival and were presented with flowers and led to our host home. After only a few days we have already made our day-to-day work plan and visited service-providing agencies, such as the local agriculture department.

We are currently conducting a baseline survey of the co-operative members and also have a Community Action Day coming up that we need to organise and prepare for - so the team are being kept very busy. Having said that, life has a very gentle pace here, with people slowly passing by on their bicycles and we are still managing to find the time to play some essential games of cricket!

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Podcast: returned ICS volunteers.

Ceri, Esi and Mohammed volunteered for ICS last year. Hear them talk about their experiences in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya in the latest DFID podcast. Listen here, or subscribe on iTunes.

The vibrant colours of a local tailor and its neighbouring entrepreneurs.

The last few days have been a blur of excitement, and I apologise now if this inhibits my ability to write coherently.

After travelling for 12 hours with my new housemates for the next three months, I arrived in the 'Land of the Upright Men' - Burkina Faso. The moment we hit the runway at Ouagadougou airport we were fuelled with adrenalin. Our fellow African passengers wasted no time and within seconds they were up, unloading their bags and getting ready to leave. In true British style, myself and the other volunteers remained seated, waiting patiently to hear the trusty 'ping' of the seatbelt sign.

As I stepped off the plane I did not feel the wave of heat that I had expected. However, I can confidently say that the breeze that surrounded me at 5.30am was much warmer than the harsh, icy wind that I had left behind in the UK.

A local Burkinabe

Inside the capital's tiny airport we showed our Yellow fever vaccination certificate, whilst feeling relieved to avoid being vaccinated on the spot by the intimidating security guard. We passed through baggage collection with ease – the first sign of how surprisingly organised we would find Ouagadougou to be – and headed out of the exit, eager to start our long-anticipated adventure.

At the exit I quickly found our 6 ft. 5” dedicated team leader, Juju. As I greeted him, two men by his side took my luggage and headed off. I presumed they were part of the International Service team (the organisation I will be volunteering for) but as I watched them disappear, wheeling away my belongings for the next three months, I couldn’t help feeling a little anxious. This escalated when I realised nobody knew who the men were. I ran after them and watched as they loaded a truck with my things. To my relief, they didn’t speed away into the distance, but instead began to demand money for their work. I pretended I didn’t understand and luckily they wandered away. However, unfortunately, another one of the volunteers was worried for his possessions and ended up paying one of the men ten euros.

The experience we had at the airport was a great taster of the hustle and bustle of Burkina Faso in general. As one of the poorest countries in the world, many Burkinabes (people of

A local woman searches barefoot among the rubbish.

Burkina Faso) live on less than a dollar a day. Driving away from the airport, I had my first glimpse of this poverty. We saw an old woman sifting through rubbish dumps and a young boy leading an emaciated donkey as it lugged a cart loaded with bags of rice and couscous. All along the sides of the road, women were carrying out the impossible job of clearing dust from the road.

Our orientation week in Ouagadougou has now allowed us to acclimatise to our new surroundings, the local culture and, of course, the 30 degree heat. I'll be sharing more about this, and our work with the Tigoung Nonma co-operative, in my next post.
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Podcast: returned ICS volunteers.

Ceri, Esi and Mohammed volunteered for ICS last year. Hear them talk about their experiences in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya in the latest DFID podcast. Listen here, or subscribe on iTunes.

The Foresight Migration and Global Environmental Change project examined how profound changes in environmental conditions, such as flooding, drought and rising sea levels will influence and interact with patterns of global human migration over the next 50 years. It involved around 350 leading experts and stakeholders from 30 countries across the world, and more than 70 papers and other reviews of the state-of-the-art of diverse areas of science were commissioned to inform the analysis.

Here, Professor Sir John Beddington shares his thoughts around the report's findings.

When we published Foresight's latest report on Migration and Global Environmental Change three months ago, it was already clear that there was much that needed to be done to improve and in some cases challenge international understanding on these critical issues.

Typically, the common belief has been that environmental change is going to cause mass migration, with people fleeing vulnerable areas in their millions with potentially devastating effects. However, the Foresight report explains, as does this new video published today, that the challenges facing governments and communities will be much more complex, and will have both humanitarian and international ramifications.

Rethinking the challenge

What our analysis shows is that rather than fleeing from risk areas, millions of people are actually going to continue to migrate towards environmentally vulnerable situations. In fact, by 2060 there could be nearly 200 million more people living on floodplains in coastal cities in Africa and Asia, facing flooding, water shortages and other major hazards.

The second trend however is perhaps more troubling. The report shows that it is the people who are not able to migrate, and are trapped in areas of environmental threat, who will be a major concern. For many millions and particularly for the poorest of the poor, this will be the more likely scenario. Migration is expensive and as environmental conditions erode people's livelihoods, building the resources necessary to relocate safely when needed will become increasingly difficult.

Pushed to crisis point, being 'trapped' leaves communities with few options - they - either stay and suffer, or are displaced in dangerous and often disruptive conditions.

Reframing the solution

The question we have been presenting at the UN, the World Bank and the Global Forum on Migration and Development since the publication of the report in October therefore is: given this more nuanced understanding, what can we do about these challenges?

What has come up time and again in these meetings and events is how important it is to focus on finding effective ways to help communities become more resilient in the face of environmental change, thereby averting humanitarian disasters before they happen.  It is not surprising that this in line with a key conclusion of DFID's Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (the "Ashdown Review"), published last year.

What's interesting about the Foresight report, however, is that it shows that migration itself can be transformative for communities. From Burkina Faso to Bangladesh, migration - often at a local or regional level - is already helping people find new sources of income, and is thereby helping people cope with, and potentially build safe routes out of, dangerous environmental conditions.

The importance of DFID's work

The answer therefore is not to try and stop all migration, but to work to reduce people's vulnerability to environmental risks, whether they are moving into one of the world's rapidly growing cities or staying in rural areas. This means both a more strategic approach to urban planning which prepares cities for these trends, and international adaptation and development policies that take account of migration opportunities as well as challenges.

These are challenging goals in difficult times, but what is certain is that DFID's work in these areas - and on climate adaptation and humanitarian assistance more broadly - has never been more important.

As ever, I am keen to hear your views. You can comment here on the blog and you can also follow me, UKsciencechief and Foresightgovuk on Twitter.

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Please note, this is a guest blog. Views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of DFID or have the support of the British Government.

UK aid is helping millions of poor people to protect their livelihoods from the effects of climate change. Find out more about DFID's work to help poor countries adapt.

You can see how UK aid is changing lives and helping the world's poorest people on our Facebook page.

The team has bonded extremely well both intra and inter-culturally. Yet one thing that has caused some tension is a few of the national volunteers' relaxed approach to time-keeping. This generally laid-back attitude appears to be widespread in Ethiopia, and has at times been frustrating for the UK volunteers: we worry that we are missing opportunities to make a significant contribution to community development. However, we know we must remain optimistic, as with enough enthusiasm and determination, a lot can be achieved in a short space of time.

This relaxed attitude can be frustrating for educated and ambitious Ethiopians too, including the volunteers we are working with. They speak of numerous friends and relatives who have left the country to seek a better life elsewhere, often choosing to chase the elusive American dream. Their departure is particularly damaging for Ethiopia, as it is these individuals who have the capacity to improve the nation's lot.

As is probably clear, the national volunteers come from middle-class backgrounds. We, as UK volunteers, have been struck by the gulf between our counterparts and many of their fellow countrymen, who live in such visible destitution on the streets. The numbers and desperation of the homeless has been shocking: I will never get used to seeing a tiny baby crawling in the dirt in the middle of a busy pavement. We are all facing an inner battle, as when a beggar harasses us on the street for the hundredth time in a day, we feel irritated as well as desperately sympathetic.

Traffic: the roads in Addis Ababa can be a cause for concern. Picture: sameffron/Flickr

Another alien aspect of Addis is its approach to road safety. Accidents are common here – the combination of a lack of lanes and traffic lights, the requirement that only the driver must wear a seatbelt, and the scarcity of pavements has taken some getting used to!

I have adapted to different customs within my host home too. The mother has practised 'gursha' on me, which involves feeding me with her hand. As this is a sign of affection, I have swallowed my inhibitions along with the food. I have also discovered that young Ethiopians do not tell their parents they have a partner until they decide to get married. When questioning one of the volunteers about her boyfriend's occupation in front of her parents, I was met with an alarmed look, and the response of "I don't have a boyfriend!".

Despite some difficulties and misunderstandings, I am thoroughly enjoying my time in this exciting city, and I cannot wait to explore it further. Its people are warm and generous, as well as beautiful: their skin tone and bone structure is uniquely attractive. They are proud of their country, as well as their various religions, and when they dance, they unite in a pure and carefree enjoyment of the moment. I know I'm going to love it here.

I feel fairly lucky to have been placed in Rupandehi, as my placement is pretty close to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, and somewhere I hope to visit before I leave.

This was the first week of the school closure and at first I was enjoying it, but by the end of the week my opinion had changed. The week was overall relaxing, but eventually I started to think about home and, adding that to not sleeping well, I started to feel slightly homesick. It was only very minor though and nothing a phonecall home couldn't solve.

Me with my host family: my 'aama' - mother; 'buwa' - father; and 'bahini' - niece.

Making my blogging and my contact with home a lot easier is the fact that Shreedhar has now registered my phone to use the internet. It only costs about 1p per hour to use and, by my reckoning, is a similar speed to the cyber cafe. The mobile service in Nepal is generally cheap all round: it costs only 1p to text and 2p per minute to ring a mobile in Nepal; and 5p to text a mobile, or 12p per minute to phone a landline in England.

On Saturday we conducted our activity for the week with the youth club. This was a workshop on how to organise meetings and other activities - the first of 11 topics that we must cover in total. It went very well, with 20 under 25s and five overs attending (bearing in mind that 'youth' in Nepal is classified as under 40).

My host home has three floors: including a roof, a balcony on the second floor (the same floor as my bedroom) and a bicycle shop on the ground floor. I share a room with Shreedhar and after speaking to some other volunteers am very lucky, especially since we have carpet and proper curtains rather than wooden shutters. My bed is a simple wooden bench, but with the bedding provided by Restless Development it's comfy enough to sleep on. I have no mosquito net, but have seen very few in my time here. I'm still taking my anti-malarial tablets each day, though, with no side effects other than slightly dry skin on my arms and legs.

I suppose it's time I came clean and told everybody that I'm fully embracing the culture and doing things 'Nepali' style. For people who don't know, this means that I'm eating with my right hand (no cutlery) and using my left as a substitute for toilet paper. It's actually very effective and much more sustainable than using paper, so maybe it will catch on in the UK....

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Podcast: returned ICS volunteers.

Ceri, Esi and Mohammed volunteered for ICS last year. Hear them talk about their experiences in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya in the latest DFID  podcast. Listen here, or subscribe on iTunes.

I can't believe how much we have learnt in such a short space of time. We have had Spanish lessons every day - and for some, who have had no experience of the language before, it has been a bit of a challenge! On top of improving our ability to communicate with the people that we will be working with, we have also had a series of talks from development workers, environmental and human rights specialists, and the Peruvian correspondent for The Economist and Time magazine, Lucien Chauvin.

In these discussions, we have tackled issues ranging from water scarcity and environmental change to indigenous isolation and health problems. Something I found particularly interesting was learning about Peru's turbulent recent history of internal conflict and how this still affects these topics. Despite its classification by the World Bank as a middle income country, Peru's conflict has left a lot of areas still in need of development, including the public education system. I am really looking forward to playing a role in improving the situation through our placements teaching English.

The traffic in Peru's cities can be daunting for newcomers. Picture: Jackson Lee/Flickr

Another key issue we have dealt with has been intercultural communication. After tours of Lima and some of its districts such as Miraflores and Barranco, our first impressions of the country and its people have been really positive and welcoming. However, there are definitely a few noticeable differences between Peruvian and English culture, the biggest of which, after the obvious language barrier, is the driving. Traffic here is far less orderly than in England and even crossing the road was a little bit daunting to start with! Despite this, we have benefited from another aspect of Peruvian culture: that of being very open and friendly - for example, greeting everyone in the room with a kiss on the cheek - which has made us feel very welcomed into the community.

Orientation has been a really great experience, and now that we know more about the placements we will be working on, we can't wait to move to Villa El Salvador and get started.

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Podcast: returned volunteers Esi, Mohammed and Ceri

Ceri, Esi and Mohammed volunteered for ICS last year. Hear them talk about their experiences in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya in the latest DFID  podcast.

Listen here, or subscribe on iTunes.