There is often that notion that once you have access to the Internet or to other information and communication technologies (ICT), the whole world of information lies rights at your feet, so you only need to pick the best of it. But in contrary, it can become incredibly time consuming to verify information and to make yourself a trusted source. In the field of ICT4D, this issue is particularly important. In many cases people do not have years of experience working with ICTs and have actually learnt them just the auto-didactic way – using the Internet for their own benefit. Let’s take the case of farmers in rural areas of Africa.

Kenya. Photo: © Curt Carnemark / World Bank

Farmers in developing countries

The other day I had an interesting conversation with a colleague, who has been working already for decades in the rural development and agriculture field around the world. We talked about the potentials for ICT in agriculture and in specific farmers. One of the major challenges is neither access nor literacy, but simply trust. Why should a farmer trust an information coming from somewhere as an SMS? Farmers make careful elaborations, before they change certain practices. Information from a website can help, but at the end of the day what counts is the advice of trusted colleagues. So, we have to realize that information through ICTs often have only a small impact.

ICT and agriculture

In the case of agriculture, behavioural change through extension advice is even more difficult to happen through ICTs. For decades, it has been well known that advise has no effect if simply some guides and brochures are sent to farmers. More effective is a participatory process, where farmers learn from each other directly. So why should farmers change practices they have done for years when they get advice through SMS or any other channel? “It needs a lot more than ICTs,” pointed my colleague.

In contrast, market information particularly through mobile phones is more successful because of the price information, which are much easier to trust than a particular advice for the next cultivation. But even in this case, they had to be introduced in groups of trusted people. Otherwise, who would trust a SMS from anywhere? Would you? There have been cases where rumors spread through SMS have even led to violence.

Demystify the Internet in Rural Africa

Take yourself as an example, how many sources do you really read or how many people do you speak to before you can take the information for granted? ICTs allow for incredibly easy publishing and disseminating of information; but the information is still not worth a penny if it is not trusted. Linda Raftree has a great post, where she describes her experiences during ICT training courses in Ghana.

“Another question that surfaced was ‘Is the internet true?’” This led to a great discussion on how information comes from all sides, and that anyone can actually put information online. It’s truth, and anyone can’t believe everything one reads, it’s not regulated, you need to find a few sources and make some judgment calls.”

Although all this information is not new at all, so many ICT approaches forgot exactly about that challenge. The information has to only be delivered somewhere and that should bring change. The problem is that trust is built slowly through social relations and these take a lot longer to grow online.

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The simplest and most powerful form of mobile activism in the future will probably still be ordinary communication. However, in all fields of activism such as advocacy, awareness, research and protest, the mobile phone can be a strategic tool for communication, collaboration, coordination and collective action. In this regard we have only started to tap upon the potential of this all-purpose tool, being it in ownership by a majority of Africans across the continent.
However if one wants to look at some likely future scenarios and potentials for advanced mobile usage, then 4 trends could be particularly promising for mobile activism.

The first trend is disruptive innovation around mobile phones especially in Africa. If it is hardware or software, the creativity and ingenuity is happening – through adapting or hacking, new means and uses are developed right where they are needed. Open operation systems allow to create various needed features for the local context in the respective language. Mobile software examples from Kenya show the potential that exists even in low-cost and older models.

The second trend is around the local context, where increasing mobile features such as videos, photos, sooner or later GPS or sensors allow to analyse and document the environment. The mobile becomes a research tool to give its user the capacity to collect and share information. Open information repositories can be created for advocacy work. One outcome is increasing transparency. Mobile phones can be key for collectivity contributing to new information systems and receiving all sorts of information. The example of Ushahidi shows strength in linking the collected information to geodata.

The third trend is the mobile as a publishing and broadcasting tool. Text, audio and video is already possible – its contributions can support own communication channels and coincide with existing forms of citizen journalism. Here we already witness overlapping with other information and communication technologies such as radio. Surely, some form of data exchange has to work for that, which still inhibits several challenges. But that form of information exchange will happen, whatever technology is behind it. Tools for information exchange solely relying on SMS prove this is possible for all phones.

The fourth trend is about the potential for peer-to-peer networking. Mxit in South Africa, a mobile social network application with more than 5 million members lets one engage in an own community independently from location and time. Engaging in a ubiquitous network is promising for activism: coordination, mobilization and collective action. “It is not about mobile any more. It is the convergence from the social web with the mobile. The mobile let you interact within a network in a highly contextual way.” (Teemu Arina) Or as anthropologist Jan Chipchase asks: “So what does it mean when people’s identity is mobile?”

Nevertheless, a lot of challenges still remain, such as high costs or illiteracy. The control of mobile phone networks can become a security risk, also there is the potential that activists have to compete with private sector and the government in these new channels, and it might become an echo chamber residing with the essential challenges of activism: the lack of participation.

What do you think? Do you agree with the four trends or do you think there are additional ones? I will investigate this topic further in the next weeks for an article in a book about mobile activism in Africa. Thanks in advance for any remarks, links and critic!

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The first days have passed by at the the Virtual Forum “Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas” and it has triggered some interesting discussions. One thread is around innovations and mobile phones. Being it software or ideas to extend the usage of the all purpose tools, cutting edge innovations are not coming from high income countries, where the high promises of further usage of mobile phones were not taken by its users.

Looking at Europe during its last years many offers have not been taken up. Sure blackberries are all over the place pushing for email interaction on your phone, or at the most, to buy a train ticket via mobile phone. But how further has the mobile been used for other purposes? Not much. Interestingly, users seem to have not been able to grasp all its advantages for the past years – with the exception of ring-tones, maybe. I believe that the multiple options for communication channels can make a difference; European users are to some extend saturated and do not see a big benefit in most offers. For example, during European Championships (soccer), the games were offered via mobile phones, but only a minority were interested.

This happens completely differently in developing countries, where people with a mobile phone are reachable in the remotest areas, where not even sufficient electricity might exist. Mobile phones, with their offer to communicate from anywhere and send short messages, are a big jump forward. Fascinating to see, it does not stop there, particularly in Africa mobile phones unleash various innovations. Many of them show, how they can fill the gap, where nothing was existing before and that’s why they work more successfuly than in Europe. Here are some examples:

• Cell Bazaar (Market in your pocket), where you can send and receive small advertisements for selling and buying stuff. All needed is just an SMS function.
• The EPROM project in Kenya coaches programmers who come up with promising applications such as  mobile mapping in Kenya.
• Afrigadget reports about a mobile phone based auto security system
• SMS and Web 2.0 for Mumbai Early Warning/Response Project
• SMS based news and information service in Sri Lanka for human rights monitoring, reporting and advocacy

However, in my opinion, a new phase is starting with the iPhone. For the first time people in masses download applications to use their phones for all kinds of purposes, such as a pocket personal computer. As I wrote here, the mobile social network is in this regard very promising, because it extends potential collaborations to many more people, who do not have PC based access to the web. Some interesting applications are already out there: Tatango, Jyngle or Radioactive. Hat tip to Drew Cogbill.

I imagine GPS will become another key future, but also the mobile phone as a broadcasting tool and a sensor-rich device. By the way the Egyptian government just forbid GPS to cut down grassroot usage of it. Not every government seems happy about their citizens having such a powerful tool in their hands.

I anticipate that mobile phones will unleash a lot more disruptive innovations than the PC because since its beginnings has been mostly based on open operations systems and has been much more user-centred, and allows for more options to adapt, hack and apply it. “These innovations will only increase in the future, as mobile phones become the linchpin for greater economic development.“

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