Cell phones are touching the lives of Tajikistani women in many ways. Photo: Kate B Dixon (flickr)

Technology, migrant labor, and patriarchy: three world systems that bring benefits to some have become a tragic combination for the Tajik women whose husbands are divorcing them remotely via text message, reports Radio Free Europe.

Tajikistan's struggling economy means that as many as one in seven Tajiks works abroad, often spending most of the year away. The country is also heavily dependent on the remittances that constitute half of its GDP. If migrant men decide to divorce their wives back home, some do so via cell phone by texting the word "talaaq," Arabic for "divorce." In Sunni Islam, saying the word three times is a recognized way for men to end their marriages.

Migrant Tajiks are largely beyond the reach of their country's laws. Neither text messages nor "talaaq" are legal methods of divorce there (unlike in other countries like Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, where courts have sanctioned the combination), but courts can't enforce this or other divorce proceedings — like alimony payments — on an absent husband.

These Tajik women are often left without homes or means of support when their marriages end. Respite may only come when they are fully integrated into the legal system — to match their immersion in the technology that has already deeply touched their lives.

A new, low-cost water filtration system will make it easier for poor Indians to access clean drinking water. Photo: Jackol (flickr)

Here's some conventional marketing wisdom: People who live on less than $2 per day simply aren't a worthwhile target demographic.

But recently, some Indian companies are challenging such ossified thinking with innovative products designed to fit the needs of India's poor, reports The Wall Street Journal:

Such inventions represent a fundamental shift in the global order of innovation. Until recently, the West served rich consumers and then let its products and technology filter down to poorer countries. Now, with the developed world mired in a slump and the developing world still growing quickly, companies are focusing on how to innovate, and profit, by going straight to the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

As the Wall Street Journal explains, Indian companies started to change the way they looked at impoverished consumers after they snapped up low-priced cell phones. Then companies began to design products that they hoped would find a similarly huge demand. Soon, Tata Motors released the Nano car, a small $2000 vehicle that made car ownership a possibility for a whole new slice of Indians since it sold for less than half the price of the next-cheapest car on the Indian market. Tata plans to export a more luxurious version of the Nano to Europe — providing an example of how the goods designed for local markets could increase global competition between Indian and Western companies.

There are several other examples of products redesigned with the poor in mind. Cheap battery-powered refrigerators are a huge help to families without electricity in their homes. The solar-powered cell phone base station won third place in The Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards earlier this year. And the introduction of mobile banking is revolutionizing banking and money transfers in rural areas via cell phones in many poor countries.

It's a newer way of thinking about poverty, and one driven by bottom-line concerns: How can firms sell the poor what they need now, rather than waiting until they have the money to buy what others already have?

Add banking to the growing list of things your cell phone can do.

A September special report in the Economist took a look at the expanding use of mobile banking in Africa and explained how it could play a large part in improving personal financial stability in the region. In essence, here's how it works:

You take your cash to a mobile banking agent and tell the agent that you want to send money to a friend or family member. They credit your mobile banking account. Once the funds are available, you transfer money by sending a text message to whomever you want. The recipient then goes to his or her local agent to access the transferred money. People can even pay utilities or pay for cab rides with the service.

There is a strong correlation between the increase in a developing nation's cell phone use and it's rise in GDP, notes the World Bank. Mobile money offers similar effects on the individual level. A study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that users of the Kenyan mobile money service M-PESA have seen a 5 to 30 percent increase in their incomes since the service began in 2007.

One reason for this is the increased convenience that M-PESA offers. Like many men in Kenya, Nairobi resident David Omuchilili used to have to take time off from work and pay for travel costs to deliver money to his family, whose village is nearly 200 miles away. With M-PESA, he is now able to avoid the traveling and can be more available for work, as he explains to Business Week.

Mobile money transfers also offers a safer, more reliable way to send cash. Citizens without the means for traveling no longer have to take the risk of giving an envelope full of cash to a middleman — like a bus driver — and telling him where to deliver it. In the aftermath of the 2008 Kenyan election, M-Pesa was used to send money to those trapped by the rampant violence.

One thing is for certain. As mobile banking continues to grow in popularity and scale, users will find opportunities for better financial stability.

Photo: whiteafrican (flickr)

Each day, one million South Africans get a text message that reads something like this:

Frequently sick, tired, losing weight and scared that you might be HIV positive? Please call AIDS Helpline 0800012322.

It's part of Project Masiluleke — which means “hope” and “warm counsel” in Zulu — a plan to use mobile phones to encourage South Africans to test for HIV. It is believed to be the largest mobile communication campaign for health promotion ever attempted.

South Africa has an estimated six million people infected with HIV, according to the United Nations. And almost 90 percent of South Africans have mobile phones with plans that include free “please call me” text messages.

Encouraging people to get tested is a challenge in a country where stigma and shame accompanies a positive diagnosis. Project Masiluleke will offer South Africans discretion and privacy to get tested, treatment options and counseling.

Initial results have been encouraging. During three weeks of usability testing in October, Project Masiluleke helped increase daily call volume to the National AIDS Helpline in Johannesburg by nearly 200 percent, according to National Geographic.

As CNET reports, "This isn't the first time cell phones have been employed in the battle against AIDS. In August, a catchy 'condom, condom' ringtone made its debut as part of a three-year ad campaign aimed at making condom use more socially acceptable in India."

Project Masiluleke is another good demonstration of how mobile phones can be used for the public good. Let's hope it encourages South Africans to take control of their health and pursue the care they need.

In some parts of Africa, cell phones are becoming essential tools for economic growth, bringing both information and prosperity. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), however, cell phone technology is helping fuel a deadly, decade-long civil conflict that has sharply escalated in the past week.

There are plenty of examples of how cell phone technology benefits national economies. A 2007 study suggested that a country's economy grows 1.2 percent for every 10 percent increase in the number of cell phone users. An analysis from Niger reports that cell phones triggered a fall in grain prices and a 20 percent reduction in geographical differences in grain prices after they were introduced in 2001. The researcher concludes that cell phones allow grain traders to collect information about market prices without the time and expense of travel, allowing them to respond to market shifts cheaply and efficiently.

The war in the Congo, however, illuminates the dark side of this technological success. Part of the battle is over resources, including a rare mineral called coltan used to manufacture small electronics. Eighty percent of the world’s coltan is in the DRC, and the world's rabid demand for things like laptops and cell phones has made coltan extremely valuable.

According to OneWorld.net:

Armed militias from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, along with local militias from the DRC, are exploiting most of the reserves and selling the product to multinational corporations that produce cell phones and other electronic devices.”

This battle over resources has led to rape, torture and death in the Congo. In introducing the history of this conflict, a reporter for The Independent admonishes, "No, this is not only a story about them. This — the tale of a short journey into the long Congolese war we in the West have fostered, fuelled and funded — is a story about you.”

Photo: voxphoto (flickr)

In a span of just ten days, 7,400 Cubans signed new mobile phone contracts. On April 14, President Raul Castro lifted a ban restricting ordinary citizens from purchasing personal cell phones. The number of contracts is impressive, the BBC reports, considering that a cell phone in Cuba costs six times the average monthly salary.

Under Raul's brother Fidel, only government officials and people working for foreign firms were allowed to own cell phones. In addition to lifting the ban on personal cell phones, Raul Castro has lifted restrictions on DVDs, car rentals and other goods.

What more changes in Raul Castro's Cuba lie ahead?

Photo: Richard Jacquot/Mercy Corps

Want to know a surprising statistic? Approximately 3 billion people (about half the world's population) own cell phones. Even more surprising? More than half of those subscribers live in poor countries. The Economist offers a look at the role technology plays in the lives of those living poverty and the future of the internet in the developing world. However, the question remains: will this trend in cellular telephones be mimicked in the internet industry?

The article concludes that the internet isn't likely to hold the same hope as the cell phone industry for providing a global connection to the world's poor. This is due to both high costs and the unlikelihood that private enterprise will undertake the task. I might argue that this article underestimates the speed of technological innovation. It may just be a matter of time for an internet infrastructure based on optical-fibre lines to develop in such places as Central Africa. Who would have guessed the current reach of cell phones fifty years ago?

In last week's print edition of The Economist, it is suggested that lavatories must come before laptops in the leapfrogging of technologies. The article suggests that most new technologies need to follow a traditional path when diffusing into emerging markets. Basic infrastructure is still a primary concern in these countries and the introduction of high-tech products does not directly address the core issues. "Most of the time, to go high-tech, you need to have gone medium-tech first." Cell phones may prove to be the exception of a rapid technological advance in the developing world.