1. 56 Detecon Management Report blue • 2015
Emerging markets and developing countries are mobile – a good foundation for
development work. Cell phones and laptops are a gateway to information,
knowledge, and services. And that promotes the level of development worldwide.
ICT4Development
How Communications
Technologies Can
Save the World

2. 57 Detecon Management Report blue • 2015
The information and telecommunications industry (ICT) is
changing the way we live. Seven billion mobile lines worldwide
mean (statistically at least) that every single person on the face
of the earth has his or her own mobile device, and five billion
of them are in use by people living in emerging or developing
countries, making them more mobile today than the Western
markets.
ICT can act as a catalyst for radical economic and social change
in emerging and developing markets because they now have
the opportunity to catch up with technological developments,
reduce the digital gap within their borders, and utilize commu-
nications technologies to alleviate poverty. Everyone benefits,
whether the small farmers who obtain the latest price infor-
mation in a text message, mothers who receive medical reports
on their pregnancies on their cell phones, or workers who take
advantage of mobile bank transfers to send their wages from
the cities to their families in the country. Elections are monito-
red by wireless services, and even social networks are playing an
increasingly vital role in the democratization of nations.
>> REVOLUTION Through ICT4D
For the first time in history, millions of people around the globe
can be connected thanks to access to modern communications
technologies. For many, owning a cell phone is also the first
contact with communications technology. Whereas the Western
industrialized countries have climbed the various technology
steps in sequence from fixed networks to fax, from cell phones
to today’s smartphones and tablets, emerging markets and deve-
loping countries can more and more frequently be seen to skip
over the one or the other technology phase.
Omnipresent connectivity is revolutionizing access to the
chances offered by information, knowledge, and services. Stu-
dies reveal how mobile technologies are impacting the status
of human development worldwide, how mobile services help
individual users to gain greater independence and offer new
opportunities for business and gainful employment. The result
is frequently an enhancement of the livelihoods in broad sec-
tors of the population, people who were previously cut off from
the mainstream economy, thereby furthering the growth of the
economy as a whole.
>> HEALTH CARE MHEALTH
Communications technology is more and more capable of brin-
ging about far-reaching improvements in health care services
– even in the most remote and most poverty-stricken regions
of the world. That is why health authorities, companies, and
NGOs are glad to employ mobile technologies for the impro-
vement of local health conditions and for the required medical
care. These mobile services aid in giving preventive care, provi-
ding information about specific diseases, and generating aware-
ness for a healthier life style. But they also help in acute cases
of illness by managing and analyzing data for the treatment and
by making it possible to coordinate the necessary medical treat-
ment more precisely.
As part of their initial public-private-partnerships in this sector,
governments and NGOs are sending out vouchers in text mes-
sages to pregnant women so that they have the means to pay for
a hospital stay during delivery and can avoid the high risks of
home births. Even more recent pilot projects have gone a step
further. The MDOT project conducted by the NGO “Danya”,
for instance, is taking advantage of video-capable cell phones to
supervise the medical treatment of tuberculosis patients. Pati-
ents can carry out their treatments from their homes and save
the money which would otherwise be required for hospital stays.
mHealth is in a position to offer medical care despite relatively
limited resources. This is advantageous for users as well. For in-
stance, expensive trips from remote villages to the nearest me-
dical care facilities can be eliminated by the use of tele-consul-
tations.
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, another example, applies open
source principles and makes all of its data public so that volun-
teers can use GPS to map areas which have not been cataloged
geographically. This type of information can be of service in re-
cording, analyzing, and limiting the scope of catastrophes and
crises such as the outbreak of the Ebola virus.

3. 58 Detecon Management Report blue • 2015
>> EDUCATION (mLearning)
A good education is a key factor in securing greater opportuni-
ties in life and in strengthening economic power because, stati-
stically speaking, a person’s income rises by 10% for every year
of schooling which is completed. The use of ICT in education
can have a major impact on the way students are taught and
what information is available to their teachers, thereby heighte-
ning the quality of the education. Mobile learning makes it
possible to study independently of physical location and time.
Learning can take place in a number of different ways: some
people use their mobile devices for digital educational services,
connecting with other people or generating content. But mobile
learning also makes it possible to support broader educational
objectives such as the effective administration of school systems
and improved communication between schools and families.
Nokia, for example, collaborated with UNESCO to launch the
initiative “English Teacher” in Nigeria. Educational content and
pedagogical support for use as aids in teaching English are sent
to the cell phones of participating teachers every day. The messa-
ges are categorized as thematic modules and include images and
exercises for the students.
The better-known project “One Laptop per Child” conducted
by the foundation of the same name in the USA has set itself
the goal of providing laptops to as many children in the world as
possible so that as a minimum an elementary school education
becomes available. The 100-dollar laptop was developed speci-
fically for the project. It is especially sturdy and oriented to the
needs of children and is designed for use in school instruction
in emerging markets and developing countries.
>> BANKING (mMoney)
For many people in emerging and developing countries, access
to mobile payment systems is their first experience with an ac-
count or a bank. Extremely low transaction fees for bank trans-
fers per text message open the door to the participation of even
the poorer population groups in formal economic life. Mobile
payment systems are becoming an important infrastructure
which can be used to pay for education, to receive salaries, to
obtain insurance policies, or even to conclude loan agreements.
Mobile money transfer services such as M-Pesa, a cooperative
effort between Vodafone and Safaricom, are spreading at a rapid
pace in emerging and developing markets. In Kenya, over 80% of
the adult population now uses the mobile payment system. This
means that more than one-third of the Kenyan gross domestic
product is transferred through the popular mobile payment sys-
tem. Even though the average amount of a transfer transaction
with approximately US$30 is lower than in Western countries,
M-Pesa recorded 56 million transactions in an average month
even back in 2013.
>> AGRICULTURE (mAgriculture)
A growing number of studies document economic added value
for smallholder farmers who take advantage of digital services
to improve their productivity and income from their farms.
Worldwide, more than 2.3 billion people living in poverty are
dependent on the crop yields from about 500 million smallhol-
der farmers. But these farmers often lack access to relevant and
up-to-date information such as weather forecasts and to know-
ledge about planting techniques, harvest management, and pest
extermination, putting the efficient cultivation of their land in
high jeopardy. Innumerable service providers such as Farmerline
in Ghana or mFarm in Kenya give smallholder farmers better
access to market data and message services which are available
as paid subscriptions per text message or app. Price transparency
helps these farmers to bypass expansive middlemen thanks to
updated market prices and the opportunity to contact custo-
mers directly, realizing higher prices as a result. Moreover, the
chance to work together within groups gives smallholder farmers
the chance to profit from better prices for ancillary agricultural
products and to negotiate regular supplies to large customers.

4. 59 Detecon Management Report blue • 2015
>> POLITICS (mGovernment)
Improved access to communications technologies can also in-
tensify the relationship between governments and the populace
when citizens begin to play a more active role. All around the
world, citizens are making increasing use of mobile applications
to demand greater accountability from their governments and
heightened transparency thanks to contact opportunities which
have never existed before. For their part, governments are using
mobile technologies to create interactive services and opportu-
nities to create a dialog for interested citizens. The new aspect
from mGovernment is that governments become digitally acces-
sible at any time, from any place, to anybody. Simultaneously,
innovative products and services in this sector are contributing
to a reduction in crime and support for democratization.
In India, for instance, a country where citizens spend one-third
of their income for bribes, the cell phone app “I Paid a Bribe”
is attracting increased attention because instances of bribery can
be reported quickly and brought to light. In Bangladesh, the
government worked with the World Bank to launch a pilot pro-
ject: a cell phone survey in various villages about the solar home
facilities which are subsidized by the government.
There are Internet platforms (such as Abgeordnetenwatch.de)
in Germany as well which are institutionally independent and
not beholden to any specific party. They provide a chance for
citizens to publicly question German representatives in various
parliaments.
>> OUTLOOK
Today, more than 4 billion people live under the poverty level
of US$9 a day as measured by purchasing power parity, and 1.2
billion of them live in extreme poverty of less than US$1.25 a
day. These circumstances led to the joint definition of the Mil-
lennium Development Goals by a partnership among the UN,
the World Bank, the OECD, and a number of NGOs in 2001.
This program describes eight worldwide goals for 2015 aimed
at cutting extreme poverty in half by that time. Even though
enormous progress has been made, it is clear even now, shortly
before the deadline, that not all of the goals which were set can
be reached.
Just as before, 1.8 billion people suffer from malnutrition, and
more than 800 million people worldwide do not have enough
to eat. 2.6 million children die from malnutrition every year.
About one billion people lack access to sanitary facilities. Even
today, about 300,000 women worldwide die during pregnancy
or while delivering their children. Pneumonia and dysentery
illnesses are among the most frequent causes of death for infants.
The communications and technology sector will certainly not
be able to solve all of our global problems. But it will for sure
play an increasingly significant role in the battle against poverty
in the future and have an impact in the areas of use described
above.
Dr. Hana Nari Kahle is Consultant and heads Detecon’s Integral Business
Community with a focus on sustainability issues in companies.