Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
employment and financial services. Mobile phones dominate the
African ICT network, and as 65 per cent of Africans now live within
reach of a wireless voice network, mobiles are the single largest plat-
form for delivering government services in isolated rural villages.
Mobile technologies can also help communities build social capital and
tackle issues related to social exclusion (Overa, 2006); additionally,
businesses like Facebook are developing strategies to provide zero-cost
access to some of Africa's poorest nations. Other initiatives include the
use of mobile phone games by NGOs to raise awareness of HIV and
AIDs among African youth (see Chapter 4.3).
Significant attention has also been focused on the potential for
mobile phones to address the financial needs of people who are cur-
rently unbanked or financially excluded. As mobile phones are part of
everyday lives, they have the potential to become a low-cost delivery
channel for financial information, electronic transfers and micro-credit.
Mobile banking is rapidly expanding in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia, and its capacity for accessing remittances and low value 'person
to person' transactions has huge implications for livelihoods (Cracknell,
2004; Overa, 2006). However, the financial needs of the rural poor are
diverse and issues relating to trust, risk and cultural norms often
prevent uptake. While there is evidence to suggest that mobiles are
reaching into some of the poorest communities, factors such as cost,
electricity and wireless coverage still present barriers for many disad-
vantaged communities and households (Norris, 2001). As mobile
phones are often used as a communal rather than a personal resource,
further research and investment is needed to develop low-cost, shared
access models and what some commentators term 'Blackberrys for
development'.
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ICTs and Development
New technologies have proved to be useful tools in enabling poor house-
holds to collect electronic remittances and access government services,
create new virtual communities for political mobilization, build social
capital, and engage in grassroots democratization. Labelled by policy
practitioners as 'ICT4D', some of the most innovative uses of ICT in the
South occur in social development.
