Sustainable Public Financial Management

This weekly news update provides the Government Resource Planning (GRP) community with a brief overview of recent FreeBalance developments and relevant industry news.

Technology: the Asymmetric Anti-Corruption Weapon?

In this age of botnets, corporations parsing through personal data and government web blocking, we sometimes miss the asymmetric use of technology to prevent and expose corruption. Many observers fear that technology is a new frontier for corrupt practices. It was interesting this weekend to have two separate twitter discussions on the subject. No anticorruption strategy is foolproof. But we need to understand the interplay between technologies and corruption

Read the full article on the FreeBalance blog >>

The Difficulties and Rewards of so-called “technical” PFM Reforms

It’s the era of PFM myth building and myth busting. Of clichés and fashion. Cynicism and risk aversion. But, ultimately, it’s the era of increased insight into what works in public financial management reform. Current discussions about PFM effectiveness seem to centre about the relative merits of applied technology versus applied practice. We invite you to join in on the discussion.

Find out more on the FreeBalance blog >>

Thailand Introduces Social Media Analytics Tool

The National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec), Thailand has recently launched a social media analytics tool called “Social Sensing” (S-Sense) to evaluate product popularity among the Thai netizens. Social media analytics have captured 10% of the Thai research market over the past three years due to the popularity of social media. Thailand has total of 18 million Facebook users, ranking the 13th country in the world, and 1.5 million Twitter accounts.

Read the article on the FutureGov website >>

Lessons Learned at the Innovation in Government Week

We attended a 2-day conference at the Inter-American Development Bank, Innovation in Government Week: Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of the State to Deliver. The conference was focused on lessons learned in Latin America but has wider applicability. There were some very interesting trends in Latin American governance discussed.

Read more about Innovation in Government Week >>

Let’s benchmark aid effectiveness with other government programs

There is probably no public debate so much dependent on bad information and confirmation bias than foreign aid. Polls consistently show that public perception of aid spending is orders of magnitude larger than it is. And, press reporting about aid focuses far more on the bad news than the good. That’s not to say that foreign aid can’t be improved. And, there has been significant work to find evidence of what works and what doesn’t. And, for transparency thanks to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

Read more about the aid effectiveness debate >>

Ces nouvelles hebdomadaires apportent à la communauté de la planification des ressources gouvernementales (PRG) un aperçu général des récents développements de FreeBalance et des nouvelles pertinentes de l’industrie.

Technologie: l’arme asymétrique de lutte contre la corruption?

À l’heure des réseaux de « botnets », des entreprises décomposant les données personnelles et du blocage de sites Web du gouvernement, nous oublions parfois l’utilisation asymétrique de la technologie pour empêcher et exposer la corruption. Plusieurs observateurs craignent que la technologie soit une nouvelle frontière pour les pratiques de corruption. Cette fin de semaine a été intéressante quant aux deux discussions distinctes sur le sujet sur twitter. Aucune stratégie de lutte contre la corruption n’est infaillible. Mais nous avons besoin de comprendre l’interaction entre les technologies et la corruption..

Lire l’article complet sur le blogue de FreeBalance >>

Les difficultés et les récompenses des réformes dites « techniques » de la GFP

Nous sommes dans l’ère du renforcement et de la démystification du mythe de la GFP. Des clichés et de la mode. Du cynisme et de l’aversion pour le risque. Mais en fin de compte, c’est l’ère de l’accroissement des aperçus de ce qui fonctionne dans la réforme de la gestion des finances publiques. Les discussions actuelles au sujet de l’efficacité de la GFP semblent se concentrer sur les mérites relatifs des technologies appliquées par rapport aux pratiques appliquées. Nous vous invitons à vous joindre à la discussion

En savoir plus sur le blogue de FreeBalance >>

a Thaïlande instaure l’outil analytique des médias sociaux

Le National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec) en Thaïlande a récemment lancé un outil analytique des médias sociaux appelé « Social Sensing » (S-Sense) afin d’évaluer la popularité d’un produit parmi les Thai netizens. L’analytique des médias sociaux a capté 10 % du marché de recherche thaïlandais ces trois dernières années grâce à la popularité des médias sociaux. La Thaïlande compte un total de 18 millions d’utilisateurs Facebook qui la classe au 13è rang mondial, et 1,5 million de comptes Twitter.

Lire l’article sur le site Web de FutureGov >>

Les leçons apprises lors de la semaine d’innovation dans le gouvernement

Nous avons participé à une conférence de 2 jours au sein de la Banque interaméricaine de développement; la semaine d’innovation dans le gouvernement : renforcement de la capacité institutionnelle de l’État à fournir. La conférence s’est orientée sur les leçons apprises en Amérique latine, mais avec une application à plus grande échelle. Des tendances vraiment très intéressantes ont été abordées sur la gouvernance en Amérique latine.p>

Lire la suite sur la semaine d’innovation dans le gouvernement >>

Comparons l’efficacité de l’aide avec d’autres programmes gouvernementaux

Il n’existe probablement aucun autre débat public qui dépende autant de la mauvaise information et des préjugés de confirmation que l’aide étrangère. Les sondages indiquent régulièrement que la perception du public concernant l’aide dépensée comporte différents ordres de grandeur qui sont plus importants que ce qu’elle est réellement. De plus, les rapports de la presse au sujet de l’aide se concentrent davantage sur les mauvaises nouvelles que sur les bonnes. Cela ne veut pas dire que l’aide étrangère ne peut pas être améliorée. En outre, il y a eu suffisamment de travail pour apporter la preuve de ce qui fonctionne ou pas. De même que pour la transparence grâce à l’Initiative internationale pour la transparence de l’aide (IATI).

Lire la suite sur le débat relatif à l’efficacité de l’aide >>

Esta actualización semanal de noticias proporciona a la comunidad de Planeación de Recursos del Gobierno (GRP*) una visión general de los recientes desarrollos de FreeBalance y las noticias relevantes de la industria.

Tecnología: ¿Arma anti-corrupción asimétrica?

En esta era de botnets, compañías analizando datos personales y bloqueos web de gobiernos, a menudo nos perdemos del uso asimétrico de la tecnología para impedir y exponer la corrupción. Muchos observadores temen que la tecnología sea una nueva frontera para prácticas corruptas. Este fin de semana fue interesante observar dos conversaciones separadas por twitter sobre el asunto. Ninguna estrategia anticorruptiva es a prueba de tontos. Pero necesitamos entender la interacción entre la tecnología y la corrupción.

Lea el artículo completo en el blog de FreeBalance >>

Las dificultades y recompensas de las llamadas reformas “técnicas” del PFM

Es la era de armar mitos y desmentirlos, de clichés y moda, cinismo y aversión al riesgo sobre la Administración Financiera Publica (PFM*). Pero últimamente es más la era de mayor introspección de lo que funciona en la reforma del PFM. Las actuales discusiones sobre efectividad del PFM parecen centrarse en los méritos relativos de tecnología aplicada versus práctica aplicada. Invitamos a nuestros lectores a unirse a la discusión.

Lea más en el blog de FreeBalance >>

Lea el artículo en el sitio web de FutureGov >>

Lea más sobre innovación en Government Week >>

Lea más sobre el debate de efectividad de la ayuda >>

Doug Hadden

Is foreign aid effective? Is money better spent domestically?

There is probably no public debate so much dependent on bad information and confirmation bias than foreign aid. Polls consistently show that public perception of aid spending is orders of magnitude larger than it is. And, press reporting about aid focuses far more on the bad news than the good. As the video from Save the Children UK shows.

This video from Development Initiatives shows the need for transparent information to advance development and improve governance.

That’s not to say that foreign aid can’t be improved. And, there has been significant work to find evidence of what works and what doesn’t. And, for transparency thanks to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). We are on the cusp of leveraging “big data” analytics to improve aid effectiveness and development. It’s time for the aid debate to move from “narrative” to “visualization”. To leverage data for insight. To test our preconceptions.

How to Make the Most of Big Data infographic

What about the other 99.3% to 99.9% of government spending?

The rest of government can take a page from the aid community to leverage open data to improve performance. Let’s compare spending effectiveness on aid versus other government programs.

Doug Hadden, VP Products

House of Lords - Well Known Aid Effectiveness Experts?

If we could only harness the hot air coming from the foreign aid debate as a new renewable energy source. There’s a school of thought that aid is ineffective – as encapsulated (poorly) by Dambiso Moyo in Dead Aid, There is little agreement among experts. And, the pantheon of development experts, the House of Lords in the UK want to scrap the foreign aid target. (Stick that in your wig, so to speak.)  Not to say that the aid debate doesn’t have moments of levity – as recently supplied by New York University professor William Easterly.

William Easterly on Aid Effectiveness in Judea

Narrative vs Data

The aid effectiveness debate thrives on narrative. Facts are used to support points of view or confirmation bias. Data is powerful. Data disrupts the “truthiness” of an argument .You only need to look at Hans Rosling’s gapminder.org to see the power of data in action. There have been huge strides to liberate data from documents thanks to Aid Data.

The data provides insight. Helps to determine what works and what doesn’t. But, the depth and breadth of aid and economic data is limited. But that’s all going to change.

Towards Big Data and Transparency

It’s rather ironic that so many politicians are prepared to abandon foreign aid just at the point of the aid data explosion. The effects of aid are difficult to measure (except at the micro level) because of factors like remittances, foreign direct investment, protective tariffs in developed countries, government spending, and governance. Thanks to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and the opening of more public data – led by the World Bank, it seems that we’ll soon learn how to make aid effective (or definitive proof that aid is a waste of money.)

This is very much a “big data” problem:

• Structured and unstructured data including open data and documents
• Multiple data sources at different levels of information abstraction
• Complex semantics requiring taxonomies and perhaps linked data
• Multi-variate information (remittances, FDI etc.)
• Social networking information and activity streams
• Information-sensing mobile devices and crowdsourced information
• Geographic-based information
• Potential for petabytes of data
• Need for visualization and data exploration

Benchmarking Effectiveness

Foreign aid is an easy target for politicians. Many want a level of certainty about aid effectiveness well beyond standard government programs. For example, the No Child Left Behind funding for 2012 is expected to be over $14B. That’s 1/3 of the entire 2013 State Department and USAID budget request which could be cut down to $38B by Congress. Is there the same scrutiny in developed countries for domestic programs as there is for foreign?

Doug Hadden, VP Products

Make sure you calculate the Return on Investment of open data projects. Experts warn us: the open data business case is often lacking. Traditional ROI calculations are too narrow.

Traditional ROI Calculation and “Government as Platform”

A traditional calculation compares open data costs and lost revenue from selling the data relative to additional tax revenue achieved. Tim O’Reilly  coined the notion of “government as platform” where open data (such as GPS) generates significant economic development. Some, like Andrea di Maio, disagree that governments should be acting as platforms.  Yet, this is what governments do: build economic platforms such as highways and bridges.

The problem with:

$TaxRevenue > $OpenDataCost + $DataSales

is that the government organization that provides data and benefits directly from selling the data to the private sector does not directly receive the additional taxes nor can these taxes be easily directly attributed to open data.

1. Economic Development and “Government as Platform”

Open data as policy can be compared to stimulus programs. Stimulus programs can improve employment and reduce bankruptcies. This reduces social services costs:

$TaxRevenue + $SocialServicesCostAvoidance > $OpenDataCost + $DataSales

2. Freedom of Information Costs

David Eaves has pointed out that open data can reduce the costs of Freedom of Information:

So in a world without an open data portal the hypothetical cost of fulfilling these “Canadian” downloads as formal access to information requests would have been $967,184.46 in January alone. Even if I’m off by 50%, then the cost – again, just for January – would still sit at $483,592.23. Assuming this is a safe monthly average, then over the course of a year the cost savings could be around $11,606,213.52 or $5,803,106.76 – depending on how conservative you’d want to be about the assumptions.

Open data portals can eliminate the need for many Freedom of Information requests – a high cost to governments.

$TaxRevenue + $SocialServicesCostAvoidance + $FOIAvoidance 
> $OpenDataCost + $DataSales

3. Productivity

Open data shines light on the public service. Although transparency does not necessarily mean accountability in the sense of enforcement, it has the power to change behaviour. Government organizations become aware that the public is watching. Civil service behaviour changes.

$TaxRevenue + $SocialServicesCostAvoidance + $FOIAvoidance + $ImprovedProductivity 
> $OpenDataCost + $DataSales

4. Corruption

Procurement expert Jorge Claro estimates that procurement corruption costs up to 20% for governments in developing nations. That’s why countries like Timor-Leste open budget and procurement data: to improve oversight by vendors and civil society to reduce corruption. (This also reduces the cost for auditors when the press is examining all large government purchases.)

$TaxRevenue + $SocialServicesCostAvoidance + $FOIAvoidance + $ImprovedProductivity + $ReducedCorruption

> $OpenDataCost + $DataSales

5. Trust

There remains a distrust of government in many countries. Not just in developing countries: distrust of government is a powerful narrative in American politics. The distrust in government can boil over to protest (Tea Party, Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street etc.) This costs governments – although the release of data might give cause for protest in some cases!

$TaxRevenue + $SocialServicesCostAvoidance + $FOIAvoidance + $ImprovedProductivity + $ReducedCorruption +$ReducedProtests

> $OpenDataCost + $DataSales + $IncreasedProtests

6. Tax Compliance

Developed and developing nations alike struggle with tax avoidance. This is especially rampant when citizens believe that governments are wasting tax money. This is often made acute because of the lack of open data. There are frequent studies that show a significant delta between how governments spend and what citizens think governments are spending. In particular: foreign aid and crime. One can make the argument that Scandinavians are less concerned about high tax rates than Americans because they see value.

$TaxRevenue + $ReducedTaxAvoidance $SocialServicesCostAvoidance + $FOIAvoidance + $ImprovedProductivity + $ReducedCorruption +$ReducedProtests

> $OpenDataCost + $DataSales + $IncreasedProtests

7. Reduced Perceived Business and Donor Risk

Transparency is fundamental in many governance valuations used by the World Bank World Governance indicators (WGI) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Transparency indicators used to demonstrate reduced business risk and help generate donor funds in developing countries include Open Budget Index for open budgets and Revenue Watch Index for revenue transparency from extractive industries. International transparency standards include the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessments are gaining widespread use by donors in making funding decisions. Transparency is a key element for 6 measurements in the PEFA Performance Measurement Framework:

Transparency can reduce perceived business and donor investment risk in developing countries. This increases taxes, improves outcomes and ultimately improves credit ratings.

8. It’s a Network

ROI in the physical world is a diminishing returns calculation. Each new market for toothpaste increases costs. The virtual world is one of increasing returns. Each new chunk of open data adds value to previous chunks of open data. And the costs to collect and maintain open data goes down because the infrastructure scales. (That’s why Amazon can provide such value for the Elastic Cloud.)

∑($TaxRevenue + $ReducedTaxAvoidance $SocialServicesCostAvoidance + $FOIAvoidance + $ImprovedProductivity + $ReducedCorruption +$ReducedProtests)↑increasingreturns

> ($OpenDataCost + $DataSales + $IncreasedProtests)↓reducing costs

Conclusions

The ROI calculation is a bit mangled here. Yet, there is a compelling value proposition for government organizations to take the open data journey. The calculus depends on the country situation – in some cases open data can pay for itself thanks to reduced corruption or protest.

Doug Hadden, VP Products

Publish What You Fund has completed a 2011 Aid Transparency Index. Their conclusion? “Some donors do well, all donors can do better.” Perhaps that’s a euphemism for meager improvements.

As a participant in the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Technical Advisory Group, I have heard that fully supporting IATI is technically difficult. My sense is that the problem isn’t transparency: it’s traceability.

[Technically, the majority of IATI can be supported through any decent financial management system, assuming that donors follow good practices that are imposed on developing nation governments. See: Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) requirements around program budgeting and budget classifications.]

The Smoking Gun

As Richard Allen pointed out in the IMF PFM blog, using “country systems” is a “courageous policy.” The same goes with full aid transparency.

• Aid transparency could reduce inefficiencies by an order of magnitude by revealing administrative costs and reducing the transaction costs for donor reporting
• Aid transparency could reduce corruption by an order of magnitude by revealing transaction and by reducing the use of cash
• Aid transparency could improve effectiveness by an order of magnitude by analyzing “apples to apples” across aid programs and through improved coordination

We know that foreign aid programs are less efficient and effective that could be. We also know that there is a lot of corruption opportunities. Therefore, IATI seems to be a no-brainer.

Here’s the deal: today we know the problems. We just can’t easily trace it to the donor. There is deniability. So, we could be almost certain that 20%, 40% or 60% of a program budget is wasted. With IATI, we know for sure. And, it traces back to the donor.

Let’s not shoot the Messenger

Please, let’s all agree that we won’t criticize donors for corruption, inefficiencies and ineffectiveness if there is a commitment to improve. “Accountability” should not mean front-page stories about money gone astray – it should mean analyzing what donors are doing about it.

My sense is that some of the backtracking on transparency at the Busan High Level Forum is about getting shot in the press. (And blogs.)

Some Odd Moments

In the course of discussions around IATI, I have had some odd points made:

• IATI is pointless because aid if fungible [that's what IATI plans to solve]
• Bi-lateral donors proud of transparency leadership [that score under 30%]
• Program budgeting is a bad practice [no, it's a good practice]
• IATI support is technically difficult [yet small organizations are able to support it]
• Certain financial software applications are difficult to adapt to support new standards [tell you software vendor to smarten up]

Framework for Interfacing Debt Management Systems with Financial Management Information System (FMIS) focus of Commonwealth Secretariat workshop in London, UK

Doug Hadden, VP Products

As described in a post yesterday, I’ve been working on a paper for the Association of Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM) conference in October. I’ll be on a panel discussion on October 15th on Online Expenditure & Performance Reporting.

The premise of the paper is that government budget management is modernizing to “Budget 2.0″ that leverages Web 2.0 technology and social media. The roadmap to Budget 2.0 includes:

• Budget Preparation including the process for creating and approving budgets
• Oversight including internal government and external stakeholders
• Citizen Engagement includes methods of communicating to external stakeholders
• Transparency Mechanisms leveraged by governments
• Budget Comprehensiveness including all government tiers, parastatal organizations and coverage of all revenue and expenditures
• Accounting Methods from cash through accrual accounting
• International Standards Support for public sector and transparency standards
• Policy Formulation including the process of building policy and aligning policy to budgets
• Budget execution including how execution is controlled to meet budget objectives
• Government Communications Medium from published documents through to open data
• Timeliness on information provided to parliaments and citizens

The following shows the work in progress.

Budget 2.0 Roadmap Interaction

Budget Preparation Modernization

Towards participatory budgeting

Oversight and Engagement Modernization

Towards citizen oversight

Transparency Mechanisms Modernization

Towards open data

Budget Comprehensiveness Modernization

Towards treating whole of government as an enterprise

Budget Execution and Accounting Method Modernization

Towards true value of government and government performance

International Public Sector and Technical Standards

Towards true financial comparison between governments

Timeliness

Towards timely data to enable timely decisions

Policy Management

Towards participatory policy

Liza Benkovitch, FreeBalance Washington

With the current state of tech innovation spreading in Europe, Asia & North America, it is not surprising to see the rise in tech communities in Africa. Technological revolution fosters new growth of local businesses and provides a better infrastructure for sustainable development within the continent. This trend is often termed ICT4D or Information and Communications Technologies for Development.

Africa: The Continent of Opportunity

According to Gallup Survey, entrepreneurship in Africa is becoming a popular notion, with 1 out of 5 African young adults are planning to start a business in the next year. This will help overcome the negative stereotypes and rebrand Africa as a continent of opportunity, sustainability and a land of capacity building initiatives.

Given the current IT infrastructure limits in Africa, the high growth rate of African start-ups is impressive.  In sub-Saharan Africa alone, over 90% of business operations are conducted through SMEs and they contribute around 50% of GDP. Hence, more people have started their own small businesses and internet ventures. Obinna Ekezie, for example, is a Founder of a Nigerian start-up, www.wakanow.com. Wakanow is an online travel booking company that provides customers with convenience and flexibility to make online travel arrangements within Africa. E-services range from online tickets, corporate travel, hotel booking and even airport pickups.  And to add to the convenience factor – the Wakanow mobile app was just launched.

Funding African Startups

The nature of start-ups in Africa is evolving. Start-ups been funded primarily by venture capitalists and philanthropic investment firms, with the support of intermediary organizations. Active SMEs investors in Africa include Soros Economic Development Fund, Omidyar Network, and Google. Omidyar is known to fund companies and organizations that promote capacity building, government transparency and accountability projects. In Africa, the Omidyar Network is a financial backer of many organizations, including iHub, a Nairobi based incubator, known as the “nerve center for technology.” iHub is particularly interesting because it supports sustainability initiatives in Kenya by hiring local people to run the center and encouraging entrepreneurs to invest in their country by establishing small business enterprises (SMEs).  The brainchild behind this innovative project is Erik Hersman, a technology influencer and startup guru. iHub, and other incubators such as ActivSpaces (Cameroon), Bantalabs (Senegal, Paris, London), MEST Incubator (Ghana), all serve as an essential nexus for technology, financial capital and skills.

Government Transparency and Accountability Trends in Africa

Part of Omidyar Network’s investment strategy thus far has been to invest in the government transparency initiatives.  Most recently, the Omidyar Network and a Dutch NGO, Hivos, launched a multimillion dollar Nairobi fund, the Africa Technology and Transparency Initiative (ATTI). The purpose of ATTI is to invest in technological platforms that help citizens track government activities & expenditures throughout the country.

African countries are also committed to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

As many African countries are becoming hotbeds of tech activity, government transparency and accountability has become more critical in Africa. Good governance is considered critical to improving development outcomes and to improving the business climate.

In mid-June, the Government of Liberia launched the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) at the Ministry of Finance. The IFMIS is the FreeBalance Accountability Suite software that enhances “government’s credibility with its citizens and development partners, and demonstrate its continuous commitment to transparency and accountability,” said Minister of Finance, Augustine Ngafuan.

The Government of Kenya launched an Open Data Initiative, a data web portal that enables official government information to become accessible to the general public.  The World Bank, along with Google and iHub assisted with the publication of the data and the Government of Kenya has contributed to the launch. The data sets are readily available through an online portal, where users can view the information on a local, national and constituent level.

Closing the Digital Divide: Africa Success Stories

The rise of small business enterprises and tech communities has influenced the political and economic landscape of many countries. Governments are now held accountable by financial institutions for all the loans, grants and credits. Now governments are accountable to citizens.

ICT4D has  become an indispensible tool for achieving development goals in Africa. It has created a window of opportunity for ‘out of the box’ tech entrepreneurs to leverage resources and improve their socio economic conditions at home.  African leaders have caught-on to the importance of investing in ICT and have made it a priority to provide communication technology services to citizens. Rwanda is a great example of a country that is committed to its ICT goals, especially when President Paul Kagame won the 2006 ICT Award for the second time in a row in Accra, Ghana. President Kagame was selected as the best head of state in Africa in support of ICT policy, surpassing South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania.  The success of the policy is attributed to Rwanda’s commitment to its ICT visions and “we in Rwanda have no intent to stand still as the rest of the globe moves forward at an ever increasing pace,” stated President Paul Kagame.

Speaking of moving forward, the technology boom in Egypt is also one not to be missed. International Finance Corporation reported that in 2011, out of 183 economies, Egypt’s “Starting a Business” ranking rose to 18 from 23 in 2010. Those who relied on social media to ignite the uprising in Tahrir Square are now creating businesses to jumpstart the economy.

Sustainability is a major theme in Africa entrepreneurship

Also exciting are the “made in Africa” solutions. These solutions tend to be more environmentally sustainable and operate better in the African context than products and services designed in “the West”.  The South African government has recently commissioned the first large scale solar panel facility in the country, while Nokia Siemens network has launched an energy solutions program to help reduce  network operating costs and power consumption through the use of renewable energy. Leading telecom operators in Africa, MTN and Vodacom, are also looking into renewable energy to power the stations in Sub-Sahara Africa.

South African green media company, Eco-Bin, transforms the use of advertising to promote eco sustainability. The ads on the back panel of the bins are used for educational purposes, while the E-lite material offers brand exposure all day, without using any extra power. Eco-Bin is a one stop shop for earth-friendly and sustainable products for South African communities.

The digital divide is closing in Africa through emerging tech- savvy nations and entreprenuers.