Hold my calls

Technology Review published a survey of the role of mobile technology in the developing economies this past January. Going beyond the merely anecdotal, the article tried to put some metric on the role mobile technology plays in growth in these countries. Based on market research in China, India and the Philippines, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that raising wireless penetration by 10 percentage points can lead to an increase in gross domestic product of about 0.5 percent, or around US$12 billion for an economy the size of China. The economic power comes from the ability to communicate with suppliers and customers across greater distances, often allowing unproductive middlemen to be cut out of the process. To we technologically inclined folks this may seem obvious, but not everyone sees it. Last weekend I met Canadian filmmaker Sylvain l'Esperance, whose wonderful documentary about life in the Niger Inland Delta region of Mali was showing at the Toronto Hot Docs film festival. Chatting after the screening, l'Esperance was saying that he thought the sale of cellphones was an economic drain in the regions he visited: people seem to be spending cash they could be saving for economic betterment to chatter on the phone. But the preponderance of what I read convinces me he's wrong. What moved me to think about mobile technology in the developing world today was this report of mobile activism in the developing world: a young girl arranged her rescue from a forced marriage by texting her schoolmates. Folks like The Other Michael Stein have been blogging for a while now about the value of cell phones in mobilizing advocacy campaigns. Because of my personal distaste for phone interruptions I've tended to pay very little attention to what people are doing in this area. I think I need a wake up call.

Some Africa Links

Those of you who have been following me for a while have noticed that I've become interested in West Africa. Here are a few blogs I've been reading since my return... SocioLingo's Africa Blog: Written by an Englishwoman living in Mali, this blog's frequent posts - many times a day - cover all of Africa and point out articles and reports on linguistic, cultural, archeological, economic, and political developments on the continent. Malilady, as she calls herself, has created a great resource here. And her Flickr photostream is well worth perusing. SocioLingo's Mali Blog. Covering all of Africa isn't enough for this prolific writer. The Mali blog brings a much sharper focus to Malilady's everyday life in Bamako. Even the occasional recipe shows up here. Timbuktu Chronicles. This blog, written by New Your City entrepreneur Emeka Okafur, focuses on privately held enterprises on the African continent. Sometimes he writes about innovative appropriate technology projects, but often it's a more typical industry he discusses - a successful iron foundry in Nigeria, for example. When I came back from Mali this winter, my friends would ask - yes, but what kinds of businesses COULD they start? This blog helps us see the answer to that. AfricaBeat. Global Voices blogger Jennifer Brea has her own Afri-focused blog here. Like many other writers, Jennifer focuses on political and economic development. One of her special interests is the impact of non-Western powers on African development, such as China and India. Certainly when we were in Mali, the evidence of Chinese investment was everywhere. IRIN News Africa. This is the Africa desk of IRIN, the news site of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. I've found it the most frequent source of news on the current crisis in Guinea.