Fast growth rate of mobile technologies
The latest news have announced that the world has over 2.8 billion mobile phone users, which is more than the half of the population1, and that more than 150 million users are living in sub-Saharan Africa2. The growth rate has been phenomenal, and the emerging markets are estimated to have most of the fastest growth areas in the future1. Mobile phone users exceeded fixed line phone users in Africa years ago, and the trend is estimated to be permanent. A recent GSM Association press release announces the plans of sub-Saharan African mobile operators to increase the coverage of their networks to more than 90% of the population by 20122.
One of the reasons behind the growth in Africa is the fact that the fixed line phone infrastructure was very limited, and because mobile network coverage has been less expensive to expand and maintain than fixed phone lines, new areas have been able to add relatively easy. In addition, mobile operators have been able to offer a pre-paid payment option, which has allowed even the poorest people to access the service, once they have had an access to the mobile phone itself. The importance of mobile phones to people, such as being able to save costs by reducing the need to travel, being able to communicate not only with family and friends but also with government departments and access local government services, and even make business, are reasons why so many people are willing to save and invest to have a phone, even from the small income they make.
Mobile technologies and the development agenda
Just by looking at many of the recent conference programs, reports or articles focusing on the international development agenda and new technologies, a full concept of “m-development” has been born. The traditional development areas have been linked with an m-prefix exactly the same way than the letter 'e' has been used to refer to many information or knowledge society topics, and concepts such as m-government, m-education, m-agriculture, and so forth are seen as some of the latest priority areas.
This is an indication that with the fast development of mobile infrastructure, technologies and applications, as well as growing number of mobile phone users, different agencies have understood the importance and potential of the vague concept of m-development. Some of these government organisations, local and international development agencies and donors have already incorporated mobile technologies into their strategies, so that these technologies would be utilised to encourage positive change.
The grown interest towards mobile technologies is partly linked with the growth of capacity within the whole ICTs for development field. During the last few years the basic understanding of the role of ICTs for development has grown as a result of high level conferences and summits, such as the world summit for the information society3, and different new initiatives and programs dedicated to topic. Since ICTs are not only seen as a key for economical growth but also as a cross cutting supporting and enabling pillar that serves most, if not all, of the development areas such as millennium development goals, the importance of mobile technologies should not be taken lightly.
This is not to say that mobile technologies and applications would be without challenges. Access to information through mobile phones is still too expensive for many people, technological illiteracy to use anything else than basic functionality is common among less educated people, digital content is still predominantly written in English, and the fact that there is a lack of local content and applications are few examples of the issues.
But, compared to the slow internet penetration growth in Africa, it is hoped that mobile technologies would deliver many of the promises that Internet technologies alone have not been able achieve. The role of mobile technologies in the social and economical development is much wider than the obvious areas of improved communications infrastructure or as a back bone for universal access. New innovations are born every day, and one should not only limit the use of the technologies to m-banking, m-health, and similar media attractive themes. Mobile technologies will be an important tool for areas from human rights to disaster prevention and, therefore support to additional research projects, seed investments to incubate potential initiatives, and implementation of full scale programs should be taken seriously by every development practitioner.
