Africa cell phone boom beneficial -- but schools, roads, power, water remain critical needs

So much has been written about cell phones bridging the digital divide and driving economic growth in developing countries, but new research by economists Isaac M. Mbiti and Jenny C. Aker has found that cell phones — while a useful and powerful tool for many people in Africa — cannot drive economic development on their own. But we knew that.

From Phys.org:

Mbiti, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and Aker, at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., say that while there is evidence of positive micro-economic impacts, so far there's limited evidence that mobile phones have led to macro-economic improvements in African countries.

Cell phones only can do so much, say the researchers. Many Africans still struggle in poverty and continue to lack reliable electricity, clean drinking water, education or access to roads.

"It's really great for a farmer to find out the price of beans in the market," says Mbiti, who has seen the impact of the cell phone boom firsthand while conducting research in his native Kenya. "But if a farmer can't get the beans to market because there is no road, the information doesn't really help. Cell phones can't replace things you need from development, like roads and running water."

Read full article.

permalink (August 10th, 2010)

Africa. Birth registration by SMS

PSFK as part of their Future Of Health Report for UNICEF describes a birth registration service by SMS out of Africa.

In many developing nations, newborn babies are in a bit of a blind spot. Difficulties in registering births both for the parents and the government make it hard to keep check of the population.

But with the insight that people have access to mobile phones and networks (Africa, for example), a new service allows the parents to register the birth of a child via their cellphone, and that also rewards them for doing so.

Parents use their phones and simply text: “Family Name” to [phone number] and a birth certificate will be created. This will be delivered along with the first visit of a health care worker, who will also provide a basic baby-kit. When the parents and their baby are in the database, they will receive automated texts with helpful information about parenthood, how much their baby should weigh/eat/sleep, and will also have a link to UNICEF and baby healthcare information.

Read full article. Image from NGO Abroad

permalink (August 6th, 2010)

How Mobile Apps are Shaking up East Africa

The Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (Sida) recently published a report, "The Innovative Use of Mobile Applications in East Africa", that provides an overview of the current state of mobile phone applications for social and economic developments in East Africa. The report seeks to answer “what hinders the take-off of m-applications for development in East Africa" and asks what role donors should play. MobileActive.org reports.

While mobile phones are the main channel for information in East Africa, with mobile penetration covering over 40% of the population, sustainable, scalable mobile services for social and economic development are limited. The report is supported by secondary data, statistics, and field work carried out in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania, along with numerous interviews, meetings and discussions with key stakeholders in East Africa. Major trends in mobile usage, barriers for increased use of m-applications, as well as opportunities for scaling are discussed.

Read full article.

permalink (August 3rd, 2010)

How Mobile Technology is a Game Changer for Developing Africa

Mashable on how cell phones are impacting health, education, agriculture in Africa and how they are bridging the gap between isolated communities and a global market eager for knowledge and talent. permalink (July 20th, 2010)

Looking to Cellphones to Deliver Aid in Africa

After a crisis, aid workers have found that giving a limited amount of money to the poorest people can help them buy food and weather the storm. But especially in remote or unstable places, doling out cash can be a logistical challenge. Enter the mobile phone. The WSJ reports.

Workers in Niger are testing a system that allows people to store credits on cellphones and transfer the money to vendors to buy things like millet and rice. It might sound more complicated or expensive than physically giving out money, but it doesn’t require things like armed guards and trucks regularly traveling hundreds of miles with bundles of cash.

... A non-governmental group called Concern Worldwide is testing the system in Niger and analyzing whether it actually saves aid groups money and provides other benefits to the users.

Related:

-- Food vouchers on Cell Phones for Syrian refugees

-- Mama Mikes, offers mobile vouchers to Kenyans and Ugandans

permalink (July 19th, 2010)

Deaf children are being heard in Africa thanks to SMS

Cellphones in the classroom help break down barriers between the hearing and hearing impaired. The Vancouver Sun reports.

Julie Solberg began venturing up the peaks of Uganda's mountains focused on retrieving deaf orphans with the purpose of providing them with an education. The children had been abandoned and left homeless.

Solberg founded the Child Africa International School in Kabale, Uganda, in 2007 with the aim of integrating deaf children into a regular primary school. Cambridge to Africa, a United Kingdom group that works to advance education in Africa, is working with the school on a cellphone integration project that will make it easier for deaf children to learn alongside, and be taught by, the non-deaf. Ten per cent of the children enrolled at the school are hearing impaired.

SMS text messaging on cellphones has broken the sound barrier that blocked deaf children from communicating with their hearing peers. Deaf children are no longer ostracized from sign-language-illiterate pupils and teachers, and this has given them more confidence.

"Just the fact that they have been given a phone and are taught how to use it has really improved their self-esteem," said Sacha DeVelle, founder of Cambridge to Africa.

Read full article.

[Via kiwanja.net and FrontlineSMS]

permalink (July 16th, 2010)

Project Uses Texting to Help South African Diabetes Patients

A pilot medical study by the University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA, uses mobile phones to help diabetes patients in South Africa. Cellular News reports.

... The South African study pairs low-income women with type 2 diabetes and links them by cell phone. Each day, a computer program sends an automated message to prompt a conversation between the women. The message might ask whether they ate a healthy breakfast or simply how they are feeling.

"The text message will ask them a question. That question, they answer to their peer as a way to begin a conversation or to encourage a conversation between peers," said Dr. Kaufman. "And what we find is that a lot of these women who would otherwise be isolated and not have someone they could talk with are texting back and forth to each other, which they've never done before, in a way that's really quite supportive."

The text messages are supplemented by group meetings to help educate patients and provide face-to-face support.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Mobile aid for diabetes patients

-- Gluconet monitors diabetes by Text messaging

-- Glucophone: A cellphone for diabetics

permalink (June 14th, 2010)

Mobile Phones Fight Africa's Drug Wars

New systems that let users dial up to verify antimalarial and other drugs' authenticity could be a major defense against counterfeit meds. Business Week reports. Image from acumen Fund.

While malaria is relatively easy to treat if caught early, it kills nearly 900,000 people a year, mostly in Africa. That's because across much of the continent, malaria medicine is hard to come by, and even when available, it's often fake.

At least two rival systems plan to put unique codes on packages containing antimalarials and other medications. Buyers will be able to text the code to a phone number on the package and get an immediate reply of "NO" or "OK," with the drug's name, expiration date, and other information. "This is a big blow to counterfeiting," says Bright Simons, co-founder of mPedigree, a Ghanaian startup working with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) on one of the systems.

Simons expects to put 10-digit codes on about 125,000 packets of malaria medications in Ghana and Nigeria in a six-month trial starting in December.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Stop Stock-outs, an SMS program developed by Parson University students to track medicine inventories at the local level in many African villages.

-- Text messages across Nigeria are helping to track the distribution of some 63 million mosquito nets – the largest campaign of its kind to date.

-- Members of the public run a "pill check", visiting public hospitals to check the availability of drugs at their local clinic or hospital pharmacy.

-- A new solution developed by IBM, Novartis and Vodafone with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, is helping to save lives using everyday technology to improve the availability of anti-malarial drugs in remote areas of Tanzania.

-- ... more

permalink (May 15th, 2010)

South Africa. Police probe SMS warning whites of ‘murder pamphlets’

According to South Africa's daily Citizen, the intelligence community is investigating the origins of a “mischievous” SMS that has sowed panic in Polokwane and prompted the provincial police commissioner to place his forces on high alert.

The SMS, which warns that there are pamphlets being distributed around Polokwane which are urging black people each to kill as many whites as possible during today’s Freedom Day celebrations, has been distributed countrywide over the past few days.

Polokwane police reportedly went on high alert shortly after the SMS began circulating and police patrols have been intensified in Limpopo province. No such pamphlets seem to exist, however, and the intelligence services are now tracing the source of the rumour.

permalink (April 27th, 2010)

Parsons Students Use SMS Technology To Get Medicines To African Villages

StopStockouts - Summer 2009 Documentary from StopStockouts on Vimeo.

Bloomberg/Business Week reports on Stop Stock-outs, an SMS program developed by Parson University students to track medicine inventories at the local level in many African villages.

According to Stop Stock-outs Campaign Statement:

Today, at any given moment, public health facilities in Africa have in stock only about half of a core set of essential medicines. These are medicines used to treat common diseases such as malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV, TB, diabetes and hypertension – all of which are among the highest causes of death in Africa.

Stock-outs are worst in rural areas and poor people are the most affected. Stock-outs force people to buy medicines at much higher prices from the private sector. More often, though, patients simply go without the medicine they so badly need – often with life-and-death consequences.

The “Stop the Stock-outs” campaign is calling on governments and health departments to end stock-outs now by:

-- Giving financial and operational autonomy to the national medicines procurement and supply agency

-- Allowing representation of civil society on the board of the national medicines procurement and supply agency

-- Ending corruption in the medicine supply chain to stop theft and diversion of essential medicines

-- Providing a dedicated budget line for essential medicines

-- Living up to commitments to spend 15% of national budgets on health care

-- Providing free essential medicines at all public health institutions

Related projects:

-- Saving Lives with "SMS for Life" - Is an initiative that uses a combination of mobile phones, SMS technologies and intuitive web sites to track and manage the supply of (ACT) drugs and Quinine injectables, both of which are key to reducing the number of deaths from malaria in Tanzania.

-- "Pill-Check "Clinics - Members of the public in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Malawi run a "pill check", visiting public hospitals to check the availability of drugs at their local clinic or hospital pharmacy.

-- Mobile Phones to serve as doctors in developing countries - In South Africa, the SIMpill is a sensor-equipped pill bottle with a SIM card that informs doctors whether patients are taking their tuberculosis medicine.

permalink (April 26th, 2010)

Are health risks being ignored as networks are rolled out across Africa?

Are Telecoms oo good to be true? The technology has completely transformed life and business in Africa, but evidence of dire health risks is being ignored, writes Glenn Ashton for Times Live.

While few can deny the economic benefits that this growth has brought to a continent historically hobbled by a patchy telecommunications infrastructure, the physical risks on the health of the people of Africa have neither been quantified nor are they being monitored.

South Africa has at least one documented cluster of negative health effects arising near wi-max broadband antennae, with side effects including rashes, dizziness, insomnia and tinnitus, inability to concentrate and headaches. These symptoms have shown up across people of all ages and even in pets.

Wildlife studies have demonstrated proof of reduced reproduction in birds nesting near transmission sites. Rodent studies demonstrate statistically significant linkages between exposure and loss of fertility, as well as increased rates of cancer related to genetic damage.

... Nations which maintain accurate statistical data, such as Sweden, have shown remarkable negative impacts on health and absenteeism rates after the installation of these new generation data transmission systems. Consequently, limitations have been placed on where base stations are located and the types of electromagnetic emissions that are permitted in various locales.

In Africa and most of the global south there is little such oversight.

[via twitter.com/kiwanja]

permalink (April 20th, 2010)

SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa

The World Health Organization features "SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa", a new collection of essays and case studies examining how SMS has been used in Africa, as part of its World Health Day activities. [via twitter/kiwanja]

SMS Uprising provides a unique insight into how activists and social change advocates are addressing Africa's many challenges from within, and how they are using mobile telephone technologies to facilitate these changes.

This collection of essays by those engaged in using mobile phone technologies for social change provides an analysis of the socio-economic, political and media contexts faced by activists in Africa today.

The essays address a broad range of issues including inequalities in access to technology based on gender, rural and urban usage, as well as offering practical examples of how activists are using mobile technology to organise and document their experiences. They provide an overview of the lessons learned in making effective use of mobile phone technologies without any of the romanticism so often associated with the use of new technologies for social change. The examples are shared in a way that makes them easy to replicate – 'Try this idea in your campaign.'

The intention is that the experiences described within the book will lead to greater reflection about the real potential and limitations of mobile technologies.

permalink (April 5th, 2010)

'Mobile phones revolutionise e-commerce in Africa'

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Tuesday released the results of a comprehensive study into the economic value of mobile phone use in Africa, particularly in the banking sector. Afrique en Ligne reports.

The study, undertaken by three academics, examined how mobile phones had 'revolutionised' e-commerce in Senegal, Kenya and South Africa, and the economic impact this has had on the rural populations in the three countries.

Read full article. permalink (February 2nd, 2010)

In mobile phone journalism, Africa is ahead of the west

In areas where net-connected computers are not as common, the mobile phone is already becoming a vital tool for news. The Guardian reports.

Apart from radio, mobile phones are a relevant distribution tool for news. Newspapers only matter in urban areas and with policy makers," says James Mbugua, Business Writer at Radio Africa.

TV has maybe gained, but newspapers provide the content that they actually talk about. The majority of people is getting their news with radio as it has a lot of reach in rural areas, or with mobile phones. So quite a few of the media houses send out text messages with breaking news, final scores of sport games and stocks."

Read full article.

permalink (December 18th, 2009)

Africa: Growing Use of Cellphones for Family Planning

Another way cell phones are being used in the developing world, by providing family planning information. allAfrica.com reports. permalink (November 21st, 2009)

Mobile Phone Use Soars in Africa, unevenly

Some interesting figures from a United Nations report on mobile phone growth in Africa, via Voice of America.

-- In the five years between 2003 and 2008, the number of subscriptions in Africa grew by more than 500 percent. -- In Gabon, the Seychelles, and South Africa there are 100 mobile subscriptions for every 100 people. -- In Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, the mobile industry has only penetrated 10 percent of the population. -- The U.N. report says monthly Internet access in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic and Swaziland is more than $1,300, the highest in the world. -- And only five countries - Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia - account for 90 percent of Africa's broadband subscriptions. -- While Internet access in Africa remains largely elusive, according to the U.N. report wireless Internet is spreading fast in other developing regions. India registered almost 100-million new wireless subscriptions in the first half of 2009.

permalink (October 23rd, 2009)

In Rural Africa, a Fertile Market for Mobile Phones

The New York Times on mobile phones in Africa.

Africa has the fastest-growing mobile phone market worldwide. Entrepreneurs and development organizations are eagerly seizing the opportunity presented by such growth. They are creating mobile phone applications for profitable and nonprofit ventures across the continent. Millions of Africans, for example, now use their mobile phones to transfer money, turn on water wells, learn soccer game scores and buy and sell goods. The penetration of the mobile phone is far greater than that of the Internet in Africa, especially in rural areas, making it the most accessible communication tool, said Jon Gossier, founder and president of Appfrica, a technology company with headquarters in Uganda.

Read full article. permalink (October 6th, 2009)

Mobiles offer lifelines in Africa

If you want to see how east Africa may respond to the arrival of high-speed internet links, look no further than the mobile phone market, says developer Ken Banks, reports the BBC.

In a continent often painted in a poor light, home-grown innovation has been on the rise. In the absence of high speed internet, most activity has focused on mobile technology. Today, a tech-savvy programmer with access to a computer, cheap mobile phone, software development kit and the kind of entrepreneurial flare which many Africans have in abundance, possesses all the tools they need to solve a business, technical or social problem. And solving them they are.

Read full article. permalink (September 18th, 2009)

Pigeon Beats Telkom South Africa in Data Race

According to Bloomberg, a racing pigeon called Winston carrying four gigabytes of data strapped to its leg beat Telkom South Africa's ADSL data service download time by flying from one province to another.

The flight took an hour and eight minutes. In total it took just under three hours for the bird to fly to the port city of Durban and have the data uploaded onto the call center’s system, Sapa said. In the same amount of time the ADSL transmission of the same data size had only completed 4 percent of its upload, the news agency said. The idea for the race was born out of the frustration of an Unlimited IT staff member at the long transmission time for data, Sapa said. Pynee Chetty, a spokesman for Telkom, said he couldn’t immediately comment, when called by Bloomberg.

Read more in News 24, reporting on how a company called The Unlimited hired a high speed consultant, Winston, a top class racing pigeon. You can fin out more about Winston and his training and preparation endevours by visiting the official website, follow him on facebook and, of course Winston tweets, so follow him at www.twitter.com/pigeonrace2009 Below, a picture of Winston from the BBC. permalink (September 10th, 2009)

Africa's mobile banking revolution

Millions of Africans are using mobile phones to pay bills, move cash and buy basic everyday items. So why has a form of banking that has proved a dead duck in the West been such a hit across the continent?. The BBC reports. permalink (August 13th, 2009)

More than 5000 Africans text message Obama

President Barack Obama asked interested citizens from around the world to send comments and questions about his trip to Africa. According to IC Publications, over 5,000 Africans sent text messages to US President Barack Obama ahead of his speech in Ghana Saturday during his first visit to the continent since taking office. On America.gov you can read over 500 selected remarks and questions about the President's visit and speech. Click here for a transcript of Obama's speech in Ghana Like Obama's speech from the University of Cairo, the US Department of State worked with Clickatell, a global mobile messaging provider, to reach citizens around the world. In addition to online enrollment, African citizens interested in receiving President Obama's Ghana speech highlights via SMS were able enroll directly through their mobile phone by entering a specified mobile service code number, depending on their African country of origin. Related: Obama’s speech from Cairo by SMS - how it happened permalink (July 12th, 2009)

Africa texts Obama before visit

US President Barack Obama has received thousands of text messages about Africa after he asked people to send questions before his trip to Ghana on Friday, reports the BBC.

Mr Obama will answer a number of texts - which will be selected by journalists from Senegal, Kenya and South Africa. ... The president's media adviser, Macon Phillips, told the BBC's Network Africa programme he wanted the messages to be part of a "continental conversation". Mr Phillips said people could text whatever they wanted - questions, criticism or just general comment. The White House has set up local SMS short codes for people to send their messages: Ghana - 1731 / Nigeria - 32969 / South Africa - 31958 / Kenya - 5683. Elsewhere, the numbers are: 61418601934 and 45609910343. It has also set up Twitter feeds and blogs on a special page, #obamaghana.

Previously -- Feel free to text message Obama - US President Barack Obama has invited Kenyans to send comments and questions via short message service (SMS) ahead of his speech in Ghana on Saturday, reports Kenya's Daily Nation. permalink (July 10th, 2009)

Grameen Foundation and Google create mobile apps for Africa

Real time information about farming, health and trading will be available to mobile phone users in Uganda with new technology services developed by the Grameen Foundation, Google and telecom operator MTN, writes The Seattle Times.

About 18 months ago The Grameen Foundation started a project called the Application Laboratory (AppLab), with much of the work being done in Seattle through the Grameen Foundation's Technology Center. Peter Bladin, Grameen Foundation executive vice president, said AppLab builds on the success of an earlier project, Village Phone, in which local entrepreneurs rent cell phone use to villagers for pennies a call. Uganda now has 50,000 Village Phone and pay phone operators and nine million cell phone subscribers. Bladin said he sought out Google and MTN Uganda to help scale up the applications and roll them out to other parts of Africa, where Google has seven offices. The new services can be accessed by existing Village phone operators, as well as by people with their own phones.

Read full article. Related Grameen Foundation news release permalink (June 29th, 2009)

Google's Africa Strategy: Search And Trade Via SMS

Not only does Google want to organize all the world's information, it also wants to make all that information available to everyone in the world. TechCrunch reports.

In Africa, it is launching a suite of SMS services today, including SMS search, Q&A-style tips, and an SMS-based marketplace. The first country to get these services is Uganda. The search service works like Google SMS in North America. You text a search term, and it responds via SMS with the result. Searches can be narrowed by using specific keywords such as “local time,” “weather,” “news,” “maps,” “translation,” or “currency conversion.” For more complicated searches, the related SMS tips service offers answers in an automated Q&A format. But the most interesting application is Google Trader, which allows people to post items for sale and jobs via SMS. Other people can search for them by texting the service with the word “BUY” preceding the search term. Google Trader connects the buyer and seller together (each listing contains the seller’s cell phone number).

Related: Real time information about farming, health and trading will be available to mobile phone users in Uganda with new technology services developed by the Grameen Foundation, Google and telecom operator MTN. [Seattle Times] permalink (June 29th, 2009)

Mobiles boost Africa climate data

Gaping gaps in weather and climate data across Africa may be filled by a partnership between humanitarian groups and mobile phone companies, reports the BBC.

The project aims to deploy 5,000 automatic weather stations across the continent mounted on phone masts. They will gather data on aspects of weather such as rainfall and wind, and send it to national weather agencies. Former UN chief Kofi Annan says the project could help save lives of people on "the frontlines of climate change". "The world's poorest are also the world's most vulnerable when it comes to the impact of climate change, and the least equipped to deal with its consequences," he said. "Today you find cell phone towers in almost every part of Africa. We have never been able to establish weather monitoring on that scale, until now."

permalink (June 19th, 2009)

Phone banking service launched in Africa, Mideast

South African mobile phone operator MTN on Monday said it was launching a banking service on mobile phones in 21 African and Middle East countries where access to traditional banks is poor. Yahoo Tech reports.

MTN is planning to offer a fully-fledged bank account on mobile phones called MTN MobileMoney which will allow users to pay for purchases or check balances. A credit card will be optional. MTN calls the service "a convenient, secure and affordable way for MTN subscribers to send money, buy airtime and pay bills using their cellphone". The service will be extended to the other 20 countries where MTN operates including Uganda, Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast which have a combined 90 million mobile phone users.

permalink (March 16th, 2009)

Harnessing Personal Movement for Power in Rural Africa

Dr. Cedrick Ngalande has announced a new project called Green Erg, which harnesses (literally) a person’s movement energy to create electricity. Designed to work perfectly on all types of road, ground or floor conditons. Will generate power when attached to a person walking or to a moving skating board, bike, ox-cart, farm animal... "At normal walking speeds we have gotten more than 2 watts which is more than enough for running cell phones or radios." [via Afrigadget] permalink (February 16th, 2009)

Texts tackle HIV in South Africa

The popularity of mobile phones in South Africa is helping to tackle HIV and Aids in the nation. The BBC reports.

Project Masiluleke will send one million free text messages a day to push people to be tested and treated. Approximately 350,000 people die of Aids-related diseases in the country every year. Trials of the system showed that calls to counsellors at the National Aids helpline in Johannesburg increased by 200% when messages were broadcast.

Related: -- Cell phones mobilized to fight AIDS in Africa -- RU OK? South Africans tackle AIDS with texts -- SMS fight Aids in Kenya permalink (October 24th, 2008)

AFRICA: Communication technologies transform elections

That technological change is transforming economic and social relations in Africa has become something of a cliche and is often presented as a panacea for Africa's ills. Mobile-phones and the internet are being used to coordinate agricultural prices, transfer money and coordinate famine relief. However, the political impact of new technologies has received less attention. A special report from the IHT.

Rigging. Innovative non-governmental organizations including the National Democratic Institute in the United States have pioneered the use of mobile phones in the process of election monitoring. The first recorded example of the exclusive use of a mass coordinated mobile phone network to monitor an election occurred in Montenegro in 2006. In recent years, a decentralized system of releasing election results first at the constituency level combined with the spread of mobile phones, has allowed opposition parties and monitors to construct their own version of the 'real' election results in Africa.

Read full article. permalink (October 2nd, 2008)

Cell phones promise fairer elections in Africa

The humble mobile phone is driving a new revolution which some experts hope could bring fairer elections and democracy to some African states. CNN reports. "Many African countries have struggled against rigged elections and authoritarian rule since gaining independence last century. However, African observers say the growth of simple communication technologies like cell phones are assisting many states to progress towards open and fair elections in increasingly democratic systems. Senegal is one of a number of African countries to hold successful elections by keeping voting and counting in check through independent communication." According to Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan: "With communication and cell phones, this is where it is difficult to cheat in elections now. You are announced at the district level and cell phones go wild so by the time you go to the capital, if you have changed the figures, they will know and you will be caught out.". Read full article. permalink (August 25th, 2008)

Roeding’s World Travels: South Africa

Cyriac Roeding, the former EVP of mobile at CBS is on a world tour of about 10 countries in seven weeks, documenting for mocoNews the mobile lifestyle across the countries he is touring. Excerpts from South Africa

Even in the wild, mobile is key and pervasive in South Africa. Many parts of the vast Kruger National Wildlife Park have perfect cell phone voice and EDGE data connectivity. Ironically, stationary PC internet access at safari lodges is not stationary: Regular desktop PC’s are connected to the web via mobile connection to the next tower in the Park. To top it off, mobile technology is also employed to help overcome the remnant effects of apartheid. In the townships of tens of thousands of metal shacks, cell phones are the key to communication for the people that live there. Where telephone lines and stationary computers are a rarity, the population avoids the cord altogether and leaps right to mobile phones, like we have seen in Nepal, India and Bhutan. Throughout the country, crime is also tackled using mobile phones. Outdoor billboards call out in big letters “Mobile-ize Against Crime!” Citizens are asked to tip off the police if they see suspicious activity by texting to a shortcode.

Check out more pictures on flickr. permalink (August 25th, 2008)

Thief steals Prince Harry's phone in African nightclub

When a thief saw the opportunity to steal a mobile phone in a dark nightclub in a small African town, little could he have known that it belonged to Prince Harry on a charity trip to the tiny African kingdom of Lesotho. Daily Mail reports. 'When we eventually found the culprit it took quite some time to explain to him that he had stolen from the prince. To him Prince Harry was just one of those white guys said a source from the Lesotho Defence Force. The prince decided not to press charges against the thief and was said to be relieved that his contacts list had not gone astray." permalink (July 25th, 2008)

SMS Scores A Goal4Africa

A celebrity football match in Germany that will be broadcast on TV around the world will benefit Nelson Mandela’s "46664" Foundation using SMS shortcodes in 16 countries. 160characters.org reports. "Under the slogan "Goal4Africa", a benefit soccer match with the world’s top players will take place on July 12 in Munich’s Allianz Arena in Germany. ... During the game, the charity campaign will be prominently advertised by the broadcast partners. When texting a keyword to a local short code the viewer receives a mobile phone wallpaper. The proceeds go to the Mandela "46664" Foundation, which supports HIV positive and AIDS infected people,. permalink (July 12th, 2008)

Restricted mobility in an African Village

Ken Banks on kiwanja.net explains how a cell phone operator in a remote African village where competition is tough, offers his customers some privacy, by allowing them to try out a cell phone, tethered to a long wire. Clever.

Making a phone call on a Village Phone can hardly be called a private affair. First of all you're likely standing out in the open, the phone owner usually hangs around a couple of feet away, and children crowd around because that's what children do. In an attempt to break the mould - and gain a little competitive advantage...

permalink (June 22nd, 2008)

Cash in hand: why Africans are banking on the mobile phone

A wonderful and thorough article from The Guardian on how cell phones in Africa are revolutionizing the way money circulates. "For consumers in developed markets, using a mobile phone for banking services is a smart add-on to a bank's branch network. But to people in the developing world, the arrival of mobile banking - or m-banking - is potentially revolutionary. "If money is an economy's lifeblood, improving its circulation plays a critical role. Many Africans living in rural areas, for instance, rely on money sent home by members of their family who work in towns and cities. But getting that cash to a village that could be hundreds of miles away is a tricky business. In Kenya, for example, workers in urban areas hand wages over to bus drivers, who promise to stop off at the worker's home village en route to their destination. ... Services have sprung up that let people transfer cash by text message to other mobile phone users and give Africa's vast number of "unbanked" their first access to financial products. Instead of using a bank branch, these services rely on local retailers who already sell mobile top-up cards." Read full article. permalink (June 18th, 2008)

African mobile subscribers surpass North America

Africa surpasses North America in terms of mobile subscribers, reports Total Telecom. "The number of mobile phone users in Africa exceeded 280 million in the first quarter of this year and will reach the 300 million mark next month, according to Wireless Intelligence. As a result, the continent has surpassed North America in terms of mobile subscriber numbers, with the U.S. and Canada together having 277 million users, the company said in a report published Thursday" permalink (May 1st, 2008)

The Impact of Cell Phones on Grain Markets in Africa's Niger

A new research study published by the Center for Global Development has looked at the impact of mobile phones on the prices of farm produce in the African country of Niger - which faced serious food shortages in 2005. In theory, the increasing use of mobile phones should have improved distribution efficiency and hence lower the variations in prices around the country. The study set out to see if that was the case. ... As grain markets occur only once per week, traders have historically traveled long distances to potential sales markets to obtain information on supply, demand and prices. Between 2001 and 2006 though, cell phone service was phased in throughout Niger, providing an alternative and cheaper search technology to grain traders and other market actors. To test the predictions of the theoretical model, the researchers use a unique market and trader dataset from Niger that combines data on prices, transport costs, rainfall and grain production with cell phone access and trader behavior. They first exploited the quasi-experimental nature of cell phone coverage to estimate the impact of the staggered introduction of information technology on market performance. The results provide evidence that cell phones reduce grain price dispersion across markets by a minimum of 6.4 percent and reduce intra-annual price variation by 10 percent. Cell phones have a greater impact on price dispersion for market pairs that are farther away, and for those with lower road quality. Read full article. permalink (February 16th, 2008)

A $50 Billion Investment to Blanket Africa With Mobile Phones

At the Connect Africa summit, the GSM Association says that the mobile industry plans to invest more than $50 billion in sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years to provide more than 90% of the population with mobile coverage. [via Cellular News] permalink (October 30th, 2007)

How Safaricom gives voice to Africa

An interesting article from the FT, on flashing in Kenya, something related to cell phones and that has nothing to do with indecent exposure. "To flash is to call a mobile and hang up before the call is answered, a cost-free way of letting the owner know you want to be called back. People do it because they are low on pre-paid credit, or because they think the other person has a better reason to pay for the conversation. t is a habit borne of poverty in an African country where gross national income per capita is $530 a year and 46 per cent of its 36m people live on less than a dollar a day. But flashing, which congests the network, bothers Mr Joseph so much that, for no charge, customers can now send a standardised text message that reads: “Please call me. Thank you.” “It gets people off our network to allow other people to make calls that will mean revenue for us,” says the chief executive." Related article: - Africa is in the grip of a mobile phone revolution permalink (October 8th, 2007)

iPhone for Africa

Not everyone is camping out just for an iPhone. Alicia Keys, Iman, Liv Tyler and Jessica Alba are lining up to raise awareness about AIDS in Africa as well as raise funds by selling ad space on their t-shirts. "We're doing this for Keep a Child Alive which is a charity that provides drugs for children in Africa." The iPhone is all about keeping connected with people and it's important at times like this to remember that we are all in fact connected to everybody, and it would be nice to remember people less fortunate than ourselves. So we're lining up for the next three day. We have about 80 volunteers so far and actually people on the street are coming by and volunteering to sit in as well. We are taking sponsors on our t-shirts; it's a minimum bid of $500." [via Core77] permalink (June 27th, 2007)

South African phone shops

Pictures of South African phone shops. [via Kiwanja.net] permalink (April 17th, 2007)

Cell phones mobilized to fight AIDS in Africa

Mobile phones are being harnessed to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa under a new $10-million scheme announced on Tuesday with the backing of leading companies and the U.S. government. Reuters reports. "The "Phones-for-Health" project will use software loaded on to a standard Motorola handset to allow care workers in the field to enter critical health information into a central database in real time. It will be transmitted using a standard GPRS mobile connection or, where this is not available, via an SMS channel. ... The new scheme builds on the success of a pilot project in Rwanda and will focus initially on the battle against HIV/AIDS in 10 African countries. South Africa's MTN is the first operator partner in the program. Longer term, the hope is that the scheme will be extended further in Africa and spread to Asia to address other infectious diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis, the partners behind the launch said at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona." permalink (February 13th, 2007)

Farmers Using SMS In Africa

Internet trading plat form tradnetINTL (in French), enables farmers and traders in agricultural commodities in Africa to conduct business through the use of SMS.160characters.org reports. "tradnetINTL services are completely free for users, except the normal sms messaging charges by the mobile phone service providers. ..."Potential buyers looking for a specific commodity only need to compose an SMS phones stating the code of the commodity in question and the country from which they want the results and send it to a defined tradenet number for instant results. Traders can also register to receive regular SMS alerts on commodities from markets of their choice. ... But a few challenges remain to be overcome, such as the high level of illiteracy and poverty among farmers and traders in Africa, which made it difficult for them to acquire computers, mobile phones and even be able to use them. The project has therefore included training for the literate children of farmers and traders to assist their parents use the facility." Photo from grieco open university permalink (February 10th, 2007)

Out of Africa. Sente, Relay and Step Messaging

The first instalment of Upwardly Mobile is about the Sente mobile payment system popular in Africa and Relay text messaging - documented by Nokia's Jan Chipchase. Also described below, an informal service coined Step messaging. Upwardly Mobile is a new column from silicon.com senior reporter Jo Best, covering mobile and wireless innovations from around the world - and what they mean to the UK. - Sente mobile payment system - "Jan Chipchase came across Sente in Uganda - a way of sending money from one individual to another. "The money sender buys a mobile top-up voucher from their local seller. Only they don't top up their mobile, they top up that of their local village middleman, say, with $5-worth of credit. The middleman takes out his commission and passes on what's left on the top up as cash to Person A's friend, relative, creditor, whoever, in another village somewhere else in Uganda. So what does the middleman do with all this top up on his phone? He sells it on. He becomes a very small-scale telco in his own right, puts his mobile in a little kiosk - a phone box, if you will - and charges people to use it on a per minute basis." - Relay text messaging - "Relay text messaging can be seen in South Africa and Uganda - whereby texts sent to a village phone are delivered to an individual in the community by a runner". - Step messaging - Also part of Jan Chipchase's presentation, "step messaging, the name given to an informal service offered by village kiosk operators and mobile phone owners to deliver messages ‘the last mile’ on foot. You may not have a mobile phone but there is a common understanding that you can leave a message with the person in the village who does and that message will be passed on. It’s a simple example of extending the culture of connectivity to people who are not yet connected." ... "Each of the above represents a simple, necessary idea sprung from the fertile mind of some user who wanted to do something with a mobile that their operator hadn't provided yet." Above picture is taken from a Power Point presentation from Jan Chipchase blog's Future perfect Archives permalink (October 25th, 2006)

Pumpkin power dawns for African mobile phone networks

Palm and pumpkin seed oil could soon be generating electricity to help power mobile phone networks across Africa under a plan to replace fossil fuels with sustainable biofuels made from crops grown by local farmers. Reuters reports. "Swedish telecoms networks group Ericsson and South African cellphone operator MTN said on Wednesday they want to start replacing diesel with biofuel in electricity generating stations powering mobile phone base stations in rural Africa." permalink (October 11th, 2006)

Outbreak in Africa of Network Broken Limbs Syndrome (Nebrols)

A new epidemic - known as Nebrols - that threatenes many lives in Africa, has been brought to light by Ugandan humorist, Joachim Buwembo. The BBC reports on Uganda's version of "Can you hear me now?". "... In rural parts of Uganda, medical workers have found themselves overwhelmed by the number of elderly men and women who had sought treatment for broken arms and legs- which turns out to be the incidental outcomes of the spread of mobile phone use in Uganda. The speed at which the mobile phone companies were rolling out their networks had not kept pace with the rate at which the phones were being bought and distributed all over the country. So there were parts of rural Uganda in which there were plenty of elderly men and women with mobile phones, but where the network signal was so weak that the only way to make a phone call was to climb up a tree on some nearby hill, and make your call while clinging to its branches. When old people begin to climb tall trees there is bound to be a sudden increase in falls and broken bones. Hence the epidemic of Nebrols - an acronym for the Network Broken Limbs Syndrome. " permalink (September 22nd, 2006)

Entire Bible now available on S.African mobile phones

South African Christians seeking a quick spiritual boost will be able to download the entire bible on to their mobile telephones phones as part of a drive to modernize the scriptures, reports Reuters. "By sending an SMS, customers of the The Bible Society will get the complete Old and New Testaments as well as a built-in search engine. Customers can choose between the traditional King James version of the bible or more up-to-date translations. Zulu and Xhosa version will be available soon and other languages will follow." permalink (September 20th, 2006)

SMS As Business Tool on the Rise in South Africa

The use of SMS for business purposes shows widespread adoption within the South African market, according to a new study, reports Cellular News. "95% of respondents reported receiving business communications via SMS while 75% received email communications for business purposes. The study compared the experiences of Internet savvy South African consumers who are also mobile phone users. The study was conducted by Webchek using their SMS channel to conduct the research." permalink (September 12th, 2006)

Text messages catch on in mobile-mad Africa

Text messaging is starting to catch on in Africa, spawning a new lingo that squeezes slang, English and indiginous languages into snappy sentences, explains Yahoo News. While demand for mobile phones is booming in Africa, SMS has remained largely the preserve of the middle class, but as cell phone firms face saturation at the top end of the market, they want poorer people to spend more. Teaching them to SMS is the obvious place to start. "People are intimidated by SMS, they don't know that sending a text is cheaper than using a pay phone," said Mapula Sethusha, from MTN South Africa. MTN, Africa's biggest cell phone operator, has published a dictionary of SMS lingo and is launching a campaign to teach poorer South Africans how to text message. A customer, for example, might want to text his "bra" or friend, about how his new "cheri" -- slang for girlfriend -- is "wara-wara" -- talks too much. He might want "2 tigers" -- 20 rand -- for some "nkauza," or cigarettes. If mobile companies can persuade the millions of customers who spend as little as $5 a month on their cell phones to send an SMS instead of using a pay phone, the revenue impact could be significant. "We also hope that by convincing people to SMS, they will get used to using their phones more, and that will lead to higher spending on calls," says another executive at MTN South Africa. Every morning MTN's SMS promoters make a bee-line for the lines of commuters snaking around the litter-strewn lot. "We go and talk to people and show them SMS," said Ursula Taffel. "When they see how it works, they get excited." permalink (August 3rd, 2006)

How Cell Phones Have Changed Africa

Another wonderful article on how cell phones have changed Africa, by The Washington Post via Smart Mobs. As surely as the light bulb and the automobile before them, the cellphone and text messaging are radically changing the way people live in the developing world. In widespread use for about five years in much of Africa, technology long taken for granted by the world's rich has made life easier, safer and more prosperous for the world's poor. For the first time, millions of Africans are able to communicate easily with people who are beyond shouting distance. Farmers and fishermen, for example, use text messaging to check market prices, eliminating middlemen and increasing profits -- and preventing long trips to the market on days it is canceled. In cities, cellphones are becoming a basic tool of electronic commerce, allowing consumers to transfer money to merchants with a few presses on the keypad. Restaurant owners now can advertise by sending bulk texts to their customers, promising something delicious for lunch. People call a doctor, mechanic or police officer instead of walking miles to find one. Text messaging has been slowed by widespread illiteracy but has started taking off in recent months as people learn key words to text, such as "Call me." He said it is becoming more popular largely because a text message costs five cents, compared with 26 cents for a one-minute voice call. "People would rather be without a shirt and trousers and they'd rather go for days without food, instead of not having a phone." permalink (July 10th, 2006)