A New Socio-Economy in Africa? Thintegration and the Mobile Phone Revolution

Much has been written about the impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) in Africa and its transformational socio-economic potential. The penetration of mobile phones in particular has been particularly marked in recent years. This paper seeks to interrogate the hypothesis of transformation by examining the ways in which Africa is integrated into global mobile phone value chain, and the uses to which this technology is put on the continent. While mobiles are having significant, and sometimes welfare enhancing impacts, their use is also embedded in existing relations of social support, resource extraction and conflict. Consequently their impacts are dialectical, facilitating change but also reinforcing existing power relations. As Africa is still primarily a user, rather than a producer or creator of ICT, this represents a form of thin integration (“thintegration”) into the global economy, which does not fundamentally alter the continent’s dependent position.

On the new frontier of mobile and money in the developing world: mobile phones, M-PESA, and Kenya

Today, nearly six billion of the world’s seven billion people have mobile phones (UN ITU, 2013:1). As this technology has grown in popularity in the developing world, its potential capacity as a development tool has been explored by international agencies, governments, and businesses. While time will reveal the long-term effectiveness and morality of for-profit development ventures, M-PESA stands as an early example of aid agency, government, and commercial cooperation. Its capacity as a program to adapt and change to best suit the needs of its users, and its ability to overcome the many challenges to its success, serve as a precedent for development projects to come

Digital Economies at Global Margins

Investigations of what increasing digital connectivity and the digitalization of the economy mean for people and places at the world's economic margins. Within the last decade, more than one billion people became new Internet users. Once, digital connectivity was confined to economically prosperous parts of the world; now Internet users make up a majority of the world's population. In this book, contributors from a range of disciplines and locations investigate the impact of increased digital connectivity on people and places at the world's economic margins. Does the advent of a digitalized economy mean that those in economic peripheries can transcend spatial, organizational, social, and political constraints—or do digital tools and techniques tend to reinforce existing inequalities? The contributors present a diverse set of case studies, reporting on digitalization in countries ranging from Chile to Kenya to the Philippines, and develop a broad range of theoretical positions. They consider, among other things, data-driven disintermediation, women's economic empowerment and gendered power relations, digital humanitarianism and philanthropic capitalism, the spread of innovation hubs, and two cases of the reversal of core and periphery in digital innovation. Contributors Niels Beerepoot, Ryan Burns, Jenna Burrell, Julie Yujie Chen, Peter Dannenberg, Uwe Deichmann, Jonathan Donner, Christopher Foster, Mark Graham, Nicolas Friederici, Hernan Galperin, Catrihel Greppi, Anita Gurumurthy, Isis Hjorth, Lilly Irani, Molly Jackman, Calestous Juma, Dorothea Kleine, Madlen Krone, Vili Lehdonvirta, Chris Locke, Silvia Masiero, Hannah McCarrick,Deepak K. Mishra, Bitange Ndemo, Jorien Oprins, Elisa Oreglia, Stefan Ouma, Robert Pepper, Jack Linchuan Qiu, Julian Stenmanns, Tim Unwin, Julia Verne, Timothy Waem

The Role of Mobile Phones in Governance-Driven Technology Exports in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study assesses how the mobile phone influences governance to improve information and communication technology (ICT) exports in Sub-Saharan Africa with data from 2000-2012. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments and three main governance concepts are used, namely: (i) institutional (comprising the rule of law and corruption-control); (ii) political (involving political stability/no violence and voice & accountability) and (iii) economic (including regulation quality and government effectiveness) governance. The following findings are established. First, there are positive net effects on ICT goods exports from independent interactions between mobile phones and ‘political stability’ ‘voice and accountability’ and corruption-control. Second, significant net effects are not apparent from independent interactions between mobile phones and government effectiveness, regulation quality and the rule of law. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Openness, ICT and Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how information and communication technology (ICT) influences openness to improve the conditions of doing business in sub-Saharan Africa. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected for the period 2000-2012. ICT is proxied with internet and mobile phone penetration rates whereas openness is measured in terms of financial and trade globalisation. Ten indicators of doing business are used, namely: cost of business start-up procedures; procedure to enforce a contract; start-up procedures to register a business; time required to build a warehouse; time required to enforce a contract; time required to register a property; time required to start a business; time to export; time to prepare and pay taxes; and time to resolve an insolvency. The empirical evidence is based on generalised method of moments with forward orthogonal deviations. Findings While the authors find substantial evidence that ICT complements openness to improve conditions for entrepreneurship, the effects are contingent on the dynamics of openness, ICT and entrepreneurship. Theoretical and practical policy implications are discussed. Originality/value The inquiry is based on two contemporary development concerns: the need for policy to leverage on the ICT penetration potential in the sub-region and the relevance of entrepreneurship in addressing associated issues of population growth such as unemployment

Youth livelihoods in the cellphone era: Perspectives from urban Africa

Issues surrounding youth employment and unemployment are central to the next development decade. Understanding how youth use mobile phones as a means of communicating and exchanging information about employment and livelihoods is particularly important given the prominence of mobile phone use in young lives. This paper explores and reflects on youth phone usage in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa, drawing on mixed-methods research with young people aged approximately 9-25 years, in 12 (high density) urban and peri-urban sites. Comparative work across these sites offers evidence of both positive and negative impacts. The final section of the paper considers policy implications

Posters and Development: A Case Study of Cell Phone Posters in the Rural Congo

One of the benchmarks of the information age often forgotten is the proliferation of posters or billboards in and around workplaces, neighborhoods, airports, shopping centers, restaurants, theaters, libraries, schools, etc. More interestingly, through cell phones, posters are rapidly entering rural areas in developing countries. Although these posters come with specific messages and graphics – continually upgraded and tailored to people’s attention -- they hardly undergo scientific inquiry in circles concerned with information and communication technologies [ICTs]. The lack of attention raises questions on the role of information systems and related wireless devices being deployed in developing countries. The present paper aimed to canvass cell phone posters and unbundle the underlying practices and routines. As well as positioning posters at the center stage of ICT research, the present paper applied critical discourse analysis to inquire into ways in which development was represented or effected among populations in the rural Congo. The paper determined that posters were not centered on local populations and their day-to-day struggles/needs, and that the information conveyed on posters was not geared toward the development of the world’s poorest. The paper crafted some paths for future work in ICT fields and cell phone bodies of work

ICT, Openness and CO2 emissions in Africa

This study investigates how information and communication technology (ICT) complements globalisation in order to influence CO2 emissions in 44 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000-2012. ICT is measured with internet penetration and mobile phone penetration whereas globalisation is designated in terms of trade and financial openness. The empirical evidence is based on the Generalised Method of Moments. The findings broadly show that ICT can be employed to dampen the potentially negative effect of globalisation on environmental degradation like CO2 emissions. Practical, policy and theoretical implications are discussed