Beyond markets for mobiles: the development sector
and pro-poor impacts of ICTs
Presentation for Mobile phones: the new talking drums of
Everyday Africa?
Workshop in Leiden , Netherlands, 9 December 2010
Ben Garside
Researcher – Sustainable Markets Group
International Institute for Environment and Development
Background
 Mobile subscription rates booming
 Prices coming down, coverage
increasing
 Subscribers still predominantly in
cities but slowly changing
 Boom has been predominantly driven
by the market
 Increased competition
 Innovation from free market
Context
 Passive diffusion versus active
intervention – why?
 A short history of ICT4D
 The role of government
 The private sector and passive
diffusion
 From access to impact – what
evidence
 Challenges going forward
Development interest and ICTs
 ICTs are part of the MDGs (Goal 8,
Target 18, Indicators 47-48)
 ICTs have an impact on achieving other
MDGs
 ICTs can negatively impact MDGs
Goal 8: Develop a global
partnership
for development
Target 18: “In cooperation with the private sector make
available the benefits of new technologies,
specifically information and communications.”
Indicators:
 Total number of telephone subscribers per 100
inhabitants
 Personal computers per 100 inhabitants Internet
users per 100 inhabitants
 ITU – Digital access index – infrastructure,
affordability, knowledge, quality
Development interest and ICTs
 1980’s – little or negative interest
 Mid 90’s – big infrastructure projects
 Digital Divide push
 Predominantly focused on telecentre model
Telecentres -> Access to ICTs -> Provide services->Assist development
 Continued to mid-2000s
 Gradual donor and practitioner dis-interest
 Efforts to mainstream ICTs in development
Perceived contribution of ICTs to development (Heeks 2008)
ICT4D evolving in a bubble
Disciplinary foundations for development informatics research (Heeks 2010)
Yet lots of examples of innovative
active intervention
 E.g. knowledge centres. ALIN in East
Africa, MS Swaminthan Research
Centre in India
 Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN)
 Information/communication for what?
 Participatory approach in tailoring information
services to communities
 Use of informediaries and local CSO/NGO for
sharing and dissemination
 How to better understand model & adapt/scale
Public sector and ICTs today
overview of telecoms sector reforms In Africa (InfoDev 2008)
Public sector and ICTs today
 Commonwealth African Rural Connectivity
Initiative (COMARCI)
 De-regulation of incumbent telecoms companies
partial success
 Weak regulators
 PRSP’s and cut/paste e-strategies
 World Summit on the Information Society (2005) –
UN ICT task force
 "lend a truly global dimension to the multitude of efforts
to bridge the global digital divide, foster digital
opportunity and thus firmly put ICT at the service of
development for all”
 Football!
Private sector and passive diffusion
 Lots of citizen innovative uses of mobiles e.g.
flashing, bumping, beeping, Ushahidi (to some extent)
 What of bigger business?
 Focus on access, pre-pay models etc
 Access divide greater than perhaps imagined
 E.g. Ghana 83% city, 16% other urban,0.4% rural
 Sharing varies hugely by culture e.g. India and SriLanka only 7% share with non-householders
 Sharing improved by interventions – e.g. Grameen
village phones Bangladesh
Private sector & passive diffusion
 Beyond access to ICTs - to services
 Bigger business not so many pro-poor
targeted services
 Example 1 - M-PESA
 13 million users in Kenya alone, expanding rapidly
 Evidence of impacts on poor, including
unanticipated benefits
 Builds on traditional payment practices
 Extensive network of trained distributers
Private sector & passive diffusion
 M-PESA started with DFID challenge
money
 Worked with smaller company and MFI
(Faulu) – multi-stakeholder & active
intervention
 Product evolved with consumer use
 Smart regulation key – Kenya vs India
Private sector & passive diffusion
 Example 2 – Google Trader Uganda
 Based on learning lab.
 Grameen applabs
 Google
 MTN
 Local NGO (Busoga Rural Open Source
Development Initiative) – HIVOS support
 Built on trust networks to produce Farmer’s
Friend
From access to ICTs – to use of ICTs
 Many examples of access but little uptake
 e.g. national telecentre rollouts across SSA – Ghana,
Tanzania, Uganda
 Many examples of “successful” pilots but failed
replication
 “success” very undefined
 ICT4D field has tended to be technology rather than
people led
 “neat” solutions and latest tech
 sometimes left to private sector
 Mainstream development has ignored or ‘mainstreamed’
ICTs
 Lots of exciting example of innovation coming from
local developing contexts
 Passive diffusion mantra is strong
Evidence of livelihoods impacts?
 Market pricing systems mixed results,
from Keralan fish (Jensen) to Tanzanian tomatoes (Molony)
 Lack of evidence that ‘mobiles are a tool
to solve development problems’
 ICTs and growth causality weak
 Perhaps the wrong question
 Types of information and communication needs
– ways ICTs can fit with socio-cultural context
to deliver them
Measuring what works
 From outputs to outcomes and impacts
 Not only information but money, skills, motivation, trust,
confidence, existing knowledge
 Multi-disciplinary research into better measuring impacts
 Frameworks Infodev ICT Rural Livelihoods knowledge map
 Synthesising new approaches – Heeks ICT impact compendium
 People-centred solutions taking considering sociocultural contexts
 “the poor” as innovators as well as consumers
 Long term sustainability – fostering demand,
creating incentives
Challenges going forward
1.Better measuring impacts


Development sector needs to engage
Mainstreaming ICTs won’t work
2.Fostering learning labs

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Multiple stakeholders
3rd way between passive diffusion & active intervention
How to engage business?
3.Public sector integration

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
Smart regulation
National strategies linked to e-strategies
Grounded in local ownership, innovation, & diversity
Thank You