How Cell Phones Benefit Vulnerable People
08:09, 6 August 2010
.. Posted in techculture and tech to help.. Link
"Ever Upwardly Mobile: How do Cell Phones Benefit Vulnerable People? - Lessons From Farming Cooperatives in Lesotho" is a terrific report published by the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP) that chronicles the findings of a project that distributed 10 cell phones to three women's farming cooperatives in Lesotho, Africa, and sought to understand how cell phones could benefit vulnerable populations. Researchers found the cell phones (these were not smart phones) were effective in reducing economic vulnerability in two main areas: 1) improving communications between members, as well as between cooperatives and agricultural bodies while decreasing transport costs, and 2) generating extra income.
You can see an executive summary of the report here. You can download the entire report at the end of the summary.
Cell phones aren't just nice to have in developing countries -- cell phones play an essential role in delivering health care information, mobile banking capabilities, advocacy and awareness messages, commodity prices and weather reports to people who might never receive the information otherwise. As well, cell phone allow people an opportunity to gather and immediately share information to help in logistics, coordination, evaluation and reporting activities that are essential for various community and organizational programs and local quality of life.
See also:
- This list of service delivery via mobile phones in the developing world for an excellent list of examples.
- This report, Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in Mobile Use by NGOs.
- This pioneering article, "Handheld computer technologies in community service/volunteering/advocacy", a written in 2001 and that offers even more examples of cell phone use in the developing world and as a part of NGO service delivery (note that this article has moved; if you linked to the article previously online, please adjust your links accordingly).
- A list of winners in the USAID Development 2.0 Challenge, a competition and awareness-building campaign by the U.S. Agency for International Development to recognize individuals and organizations working with mobile technologies to create positive change (in areas such as health, banking, education, agricultural trade, or other pressing development issues) . You can see a blog I wrote about this in January 2009 that listed my favorite cellphones for human/community development projects from the competition (not that the links on the page no longer work, darn you NetSquared).
