The large amount of different ways to utilise mobile technologies and the complexity of the environment related to mobiles combined with an underlying ICT capacity crisis within the development sector will most likely hinder the pace for organisations to benefit from the advantages of the already existing opportunities. Fortunately a few global and regional initiatives have already started to lower the obstacles that organisations are facing. So far these efforts are related to higher level awareness raising, community development, content sharing, and capacity building.
Awareness raising
The first and obvious step to help the development sector understand the opportunities mobile technologies provide is to raise organisations' awareness and motivation by demystifying the issues new technologies often have (and organisations feel most intimidated about). Awareness raising could be done by using carefully chosen methods. Strategic civil society conferences (like the annual ICTs for Civil Society Conference organised by SANGONeT) and media channels are often the best way to introduce new technologies to organisations. Also, scenarios that are closely linked to the work people are interested in and already familiar with should be used as a starting point. It is important that technology is only introduced as a tool that organisations can use, and that would be useless without an appropriate context.
The advantage of mobile phones is that people are used to them, which makes it easier to organise competitions such as nGOmobile, that encourages people to think out of the box and recommend innovative solutions to the wider development community.
Community development
The best communities and networks offer an opportunity to ask for help from others as well as encourage members to share their experiences so that other can learn. Currently, the best online communities related to mobile technologies are MobileActive.org ("A resource for activists using mobile technology worldwide") and ShareIdeas.org ("A global wiki community, sharing experiences in using mobile communications for social benefit"). The Social Mobile Group on Facebook as well as African mobile activists mailing list have potential in the future.
Content development and sharing
Sharing of information in the form of toolkits, guidelines, case stories and studies, as well as articles are very effective ways to help organisations to understand, plan and implement mobile technology projects. In addition to the MobileActive.org and ShareIdeas.org web-sites mentioned above, Kiwanja.net ("where technology meets anthropology, conservation and development") and Tactical Technology Collective's mobile advocacy toolkit is an excellent example of current content development and sharing initiatives.
Capacity building and support
Access to quality content such as the examples given above is important, but capacity building efforts (such as workshops, training, one-on-one mentorship, consulting services, coordination support, etc..) should not be underestimated. Based on the experience of several capacity building and support projects that Ungana-Afrika has implemented with development organisations, it is clear that most small organisations are still struggling even with the basic technology solutions. Therefore they are often entirely dependent on external service providers or simply fail to even take the first steps even though the interest in new tools is high. Helping organisations to get their hands dirty via piloting simple solutions within their work can sho them that the ability to use tools doesn't require a technical qualification.
Access to quality and affordable technologies and services
The lack of competition, available technology solutions, and skills related to mobile technologies will make it difficult for the development sector to access quality and affordable technologies and services. Even though a few low cost solutions are available (such as FrontlineSMS - "an entry-level text messaging system for the non profit sector"), it will take time before the open source community has been able to develop and produce additional, high guality options for development organisations. Unfortunately, as long as the market stays unsaturated, providers are most likely less interested in providing subsidised technology or services to development sector. This is an area that would require more attention from major stakeholders.
