Friday, October 14, 2005
Mobile Phone Revolution in Africa?
New Statesman - It's good to talk - even better to sell
Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society has written an article for the New Statesman in which he claims that there are two important factors speeding development in Africa. Factors that may be more important than Western aid to the continent. The first is China's increasing demand for raw materials. The Chinese government views Africa as an important market and a source of raw materials for its economic growth. (Unfortunately, it is willing to deal with even the most corrupt African goverments to get what it needs to sustain Chinese growth.) The second is the explosion of cell phone use in Africa which is having important economic and politiical effects:
Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society has written an article for the New Statesman in which he claims that there are two important factors speeding development in Africa. Factors that may be more important than Western aid to the continent. The first is China's increasing demand for raw materials. The Chinese government views Africa as an important market and a source of raw materials for its economic growth. (Unfortunately, it is willing to deal with even the most corrupt African goverments to get what it needs to sustain Chinese growth.) The second is the explosion of cell phone use in Africa which is having important economic and politiical effects:
"The internal driver is the mobile phone revolution that has transformed business and politics in Africa in the past ten years. In 2001, only 3 per cent of Africans had telephones of any sort. Now there are 50 million mobile-phone users, with numbers growing by 35 per cent a year. The phone companies completely misjudged the market - they thought that only the super-rich would buy mobiles. But it turned out that the people who really needed them were small self-employed businessmen, market women, taxi drivers and the casual workers who keep Africa going. In some areas, beer sales have plummeted as people have invested their meagre earnings in mobile phone cards instead. The pace of life has picked up hugely.Computer mediated communicaitons in the form of the cell phone here is changing the velocity of development in Africa providing a tool for economic growth and political change. That's the optimisitic analysis anyway.
Politically, too, mobile phones are having an immense effect. People no longer have to walk miles to talk to a friend or colleague or to make a business deal (there was no public phone system in Africa before mobile phones and the postal service, where it existed, took days or weeks). The chat programmes on radio stations in most African countries are also enabling ordinary people to express their frustrations and to know that others share their anger about the failures and corruption of their governments. A better-informed population that can listen to its own voices will put governments under pressure. I would even suggest that the Rwandan genocide could not have happened if mobile phones had existed."
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Prof. Mattson,
I aggree with Richard Dowden's theory that Mobile Phones will play a role in preventing tragedies such a what happen in Rawanda or Sudan. The article supports what you said in class, about some countries avoiding the "in between steps" in catching up with developed counties. Cell phones are very unexepensive, compared what setting up public phone system would be. I wonder if anyone has thought about organizing a system where we can send used, or even new, card phones to distribute in these trouble areas. I would think that, since there is a lot of iliteracy in these countries, as a reporting tools, cell phones will work better than blogs .
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I aggree with Richard Dowden's theory that Mobile Phones will play a role in preventing tragedies such a what happen in Rawanda or Sudan. The article supports what you said in class, about some countries avoiding the "in between steps" in catching up with developed counties. Cell phones are very unexepensive, compared what setting up public phone system would be. I wonder if anyone has thought about organizing a system where we can send used, or even new, card phones to distribute in these trouble areas. I would think that, since there is a lot of iliteracy in these countries, as a reporting tools, cell phones will work better than blogs .
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