Mobile technology has a considerable impact on the developing world. Photo Credit: FreeFoto.com

In 2006, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported that access to information and communication technologies continues to grow at high speed. Especially important was the growth rate of mobile subscribers in developing countries, considerably reducing the gap with the developed world. It is well known that the development of mobile technology, as in any other industry, may improve economic development by creating new sources of revenue, new jobs and economic spill-over effects to other industries. Besides, it is also known that any wireless technology in general have some specifics advantages in terms of reducing transaction costs, widening markets, becoming a substitute for costly transportation and creating better information flows. However, what it is not so intuitive is that mobile technology has also a very important socio-cultural and political impact.

In a recent paper titled "Transforming Recent Gains in the Digital Divide into Digital Opportunities: Africa and the boom in Mobile Phone Subscription" published in the Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC), Kyem and LeMaire stressed that mobile phone usage is already evidencing changes in cultural and social patterns in Africa. Referring to an ITU report published in 2004, they expressed the idea that "the sense of belonging to a place is slowly giving way to a sense of belonging to a communication network. This has both positive and negative implications for the African family. The mobile phone may cause the dilution of the collective identity of a family or people living in a community when individuals rather become closely attached to people they are linked via a mobile phone [...] it is also encouraging to note that the phones can encourage individual thought and may facilitate the establishment of closer ties with distant relatives. Mobile phones can also bring the poor and needy closer to external support networks of family members."

It is observed that mobile phone usage is already evidencing changes in cultural and social patterns in Africa.

The authors expressed this concern in Africa, and their research shows that mobile phones may be affecting social behavior which is raising concerns in traditional societies. "…mobile phones may be reducing the quality of face-to-face social interaction that characterizes traditional African life. […] The traditional segregation of context disappears, in that private life can interrupt professional life and vice versa. With mobile phone, individuals may increase their productivity, but this may come at the expense of their leisure and family time."

These social changes have also political consequence. Mobile technology is becoming an important tool to facilitate organization of civil movements, conduct of fair elections, and mass political protests by grouping unrelated people through the use of Short Message Service (SMS or text messaging) and other related mobile technologies. The overthrow of President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines, the recent 2006 riots in France and some rallies planned to protest against the World Trade Organization have found in mobile technology a partial responsible.

To look closer to this phenomena, Fahamu, a network for social justice that supports the struggle for human rights and social justice in Africa, is organizing a conference in Nairobi in 2007, in conjunction with Tactical Tech, an Amsterdam-based NGO that promote the use of new technologies in developing and transition countries. The aim of this conference is "to enable those using mobile phone technologies in activism or service delivery work to exchange their experiences of using the technology in the African context and plan strategies to support their work. […] it will explore areas related to the use of mobile technology in the African context, future trends, best practice and available tools and resources."

Mobile technology is becoming an important tool to facilitate organization of civil movements, conduct of fair elections, and mass political protests by grouping unrelated people through the use of Short Message Service and other related mobile technologies.

According to Kyem and LeMaire, the government has also an important role in enabling the multidimensional benefits of mobile technology to the population. They argue that governments carefully need to "balance their need for operating capital through taxation, and the easy access to these technologies for socio-economic development". Providing cheap access is necessary, including access to rural, remote, and disadvantaged residents. They found that some Latin American countries such as Argentina, Chile, Mexico Peru and Venezuela were able to develop policies to provide service to all communities with considerably success.

In the same sense, the case of India needs to be brought forward. The India's National e-Governance plan (NeGP) has received appreciation world over for planning, monitoring and service levels strategies. The emphasis is now on accessing this basket of services from different geographic locations and to different sections of the society. The potential of mobile technologies will definitely be grabbed in this stage. With India fast becoming the fastest growing mobile subscribers market in the world, this provides an unprecedented opportunity to the telecom players and government agencies to gain the leading position globally as well as regionally in mobile government initiatives. By taking advantage of the portability of these devices and the ability to connect previously unconnected areas, public information, government and other services can be made available to citizens and officials at anytime and in a wider variety of locations.

In the developing world, mobile phones can also be used during emergencies to get immediate medical assistance and to improve communications between parents and schools.

Finally, Kyem and LeMaire suggested other potential uses and impacts of mobile phones. In health services, phones can be used for emergencies to get immediate medical assistance, especially in areas susceptible to contagious diseases and where the less-protected population resides. They also found potential uses in education for absenteeism check and to improve communications between parents and schools. We already reviewed the benefits that ICT has for opening up the government and for strengthening democracies; mobile technology can provide an additional (but very effective) channel to make people voices heard by the government.

In sum, mobile technology goes far beyond increasing economic productivity. As with other technologies, it has an important impact in the way society interact and manifest culturally and politically. As we have seen, it also presents a very controversial scenario that needs to be discussed by each society. Nevertheless, awareness of this multidimensional benefit is needed if we would like to expect real socio-economic development in these regions. But this is not automatic; mobile phone boom are usually fueled by the profits that foreign companies want to obtain in the developing world, rather than the well-being of the "targeted" societies. This boom, therefore, it is not always integrated into a development plan that will effectively use the mobile phones in productive ventures. Kyem and LeMaire recognized that "Like any other tool, the mobile phone is not a means to an end. Having underutilized roads, abandoned factories and rusted telecommunication networks does not increase the productive capacity of a nation. The same holds true for underutilized mobile phones in the hands of Africans."

There is a lot to be done in terms of sensitizing policy actors in the role that mobile technology may have in development, but being aware of this multidimensional benefit may be a step towards leveraging its role in integrated development programs.




Contributed by Diego Rumiany, Community Guide of the ICT4D dgCommunity, a staff member at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations and a Professor at the University of Buenos Aires. Reprinted with permission from Development Gateway Foundation.

To read another Global Envision article about communication in the developing world, see Communication is Key to Development, Say Experts.



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