Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE)
Harvard University
John F. Kennedy School of Government

"Bridging the Digital Divide: Incentives to Promote Broadband Internet Access in the Lake Victoria Region of East Africa"
[PDF]

Abstract:
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have created profound socioeconomic changes in the developing world, but their reach is very limited within Africa. Traditional ICT technologies such as dial-up and satellite are too expensive and inappropriate to the African context. Fiber-optic cable is considered the most likely to provide broad access to ICT in Africa. However, the SAT-3 fiber-optic project in West Africa failed to increase access due to mismanagement and corruption. The East African Community (including Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi) does not currently have access to a fiber-optic cable. Three major projects, SEACOM, EASSY, and TEAMS, are in progress to connect this region, each with their own benefits and costs:

The major lessons learned from these projects are:

• Economies of Scale – Fiber-optic cables provide tremendous bandwidth, but this is useless if it is not reaching the large populations necessary to achieve economies of scale and lower the per capita price. This requires initiatives to ‘wire’ rural communities, either through physical cables or promoting Internet access on mobile networks.

• Public Awareness – Even people with access to the Internet do not use it because they perceive ICT as only for the wealthy or educated. ICT must therefore be made culturally relevant through local languages and useful applications in the African context (particularly agriculture).

• Competition – A competitive bidding process dramatically lowered the cost of TEAMS, while monopolistic telecom operators created controversy with EASSy. Encouraging more local ‘high-tech startups’ in Africa will both improve local economies and create the competition necessary for reduced prices and greater access.

• Accountability – Internal accountability requires diverse investors, including industry, government, and NGOs. External accountability requires transparency to the public by making highly technical information easily understandable to the average African.

• Regional Integration – The five countries of the EAC have very different resources and motivations for ICT, and no one country could engage the capital-intensive ICT development process on its own. Therefore, the mandate of the EAC needs to be strengthened considerably, particularly through unified ICT regulatory policies.

Parts of this research were featured in Calestous Juma's remarks at a G8 dialogue in Tokyo, Japan on May 23, 2008, and subsequently published as:
Juma, Calestous and Elisabeth Moyer. June 6, 2008. "Broadband Internet for Africa." Science 320(5881), pg. 1261 [Editorial]

Summer Research
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Health and Global Change

"China's Open Door? Economic Growth and the Emergence of Infectious Disease in Guangdong Province, China"
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Abstract:
Guangdong Province in Southeast China is the country’s ‘door’ to the external world, constituting 10% of China’s GDP and 1/3 of foreign investment. This province has also become the site for emerging disease threats, particularly SARS and avian flu. This paper investigates the possible relationship between Guangdong’s economic growth and risk-factors for disease emergence, including improper land-use, unregulated industrialization, and poor relations between the national and provincial governments. After discussing the challenges and opportunities for the major actors in China (governments, foreign enterprise, and civil society), several policy options are proposed to mitigate the risk of an avian flu epidemic. These include agricultural changes in the context of state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform, facilitating greater transparency and external monitoring of government policies, and civil education about the socio-biological risks associated with zoonotic diseases.

Undergraduate Senior Honors Thesis
The University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Department of Political Science

"Survival of the Cerebral: Science, Technology and Political Influence in the Developing World"
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Abstract:
How has scientific advancement in the developing world restructured global power relations since the Cold War? This thesis investigates my hypothesis that rapid advances in scientific and technological research and development in the nations of the Third World have played a crucial role in elevating these nations’ political power and global influence. I first discuss the significant debates in this field, including both economic development and political nationalism approaches. I then move into a statistical analysis of the relationship between scientific innovation and power (defined both militarily and economically) for all developing nations. Subsequently, I study the interactions between nations through a comparative analysis of the recent historical progress of biomedical and pharmaceutical research in three advanced Third World nations. The results of my study demonstrate an important relationship between scientific advancement and political influence that may signal a major shift in the definition of a ‘global power’.

Thesis Defense Committee:
J. David Singer, Ph.D. (Deceased), Professor Emeritus of Political Science; personal website
Andrei Markovits, Ph.D., Arthur F. Thurnau and Karl W. Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics & Germanic Studies; personal website
Robert Packer, Ph.D., Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University;