Title: Mobiles for Quality Improvement Pilot in Uganda
Authors: Pamela Riley and James BonTempo
Pages: 65 pp.
Source: Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Project
Publisher: Abt Associates Inc.
Date (published): 01/12/2011
Date (accessed): 03/12/2011
Type of information: report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"This report reviews the Mobiles for Quality Improvement (m4QI) project that SHOPS piloted in Uganda. In an effort to address performance gaps in adherence to clinical protocols, SHOPS worked with a local software company to develop a software platform for sending health care providers text messages to either test their knowledge or remind them of particular protocols. The report finds that text messages provide a novel and cost-efficient way to raise awareness, promote behavior change, address common myths, identify performance gaps, incentivize new practices, refresh skills, and increase cohesion among peers. Report includes explanation of pilot design and evaluation of results."

Title: mAgri programme case study - India
Pages: 6 pp.
Source: GSMA
Date (published): 07/06/2011
Date (accessed): 18/10/2011
Type of information: report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL) is a tri-lateral joint venture between the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO), the largest farmers’ cooperative in India and airtel, the largest mobile network operator, along with Star Global Resources Limited, rural telephony experts who acquired 25% shares. IKSL provides voice-based agricultural information to empower rural farmers and reinforce the cooperative through the mobile network. After a successful pilot, the service launched in 2008.IKSL distributes airtel SIM cards branded ‘Green SIM’ to its IFFCO members and other farmers.

The Green SIM functions as a normal SIM as well as providing the agricultural valued added services (Agri VAS). The user receives 5 recorded voice messages, free of charge, each day covering both local and national agricultural topics. Green SIM users access an Agri Helpline where they can get answers from agri-experts to any farming question they care to raise.

The GSMA mAgri Programme provided a grant and technical assistance to IKSL. Our work aimed to strengthen the service and improve the ICT content systems to ensure efficacy and relevance for the end user - and to leave the project ready for further scaling. Today, the IKSL Green SIM service has 3 million users."

Title: On the Air, from Mobile to Radio
Source: Internews Network
Date (published): 06/09/2011
Date (accessed): 18/10/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Pilot project lets listeners record and pay for on-air radio messages via mobile phone, creating a new revenue source for community radio in Kenya.

Recently dubbed by TIME Magazine as the “Silicon Savanna,” Kenya is home to innovative mobile phone technologies that have transformed the lives of millions of people. Ahead of much of the rest of the world, Kenyans have adopted mobile money as an everyday way to handle financial transactions. More than half the population use mobile phones for everything from transferring money to family members to paying bills – even cab fare.

Now, community radio stations are integrating mobile money into their business models. Through a four-month pilot launched in August by Internews, in partnership with the mobile banking system MobiKash and a network of community radio stations, the stations will earn revenue while putting community voices on the air, through an innovative “M-Dedications” system."

Title: Research: Mobile Phone Appropriation in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Author: Anne-Ryan Heatwole
Source: MobileActive.org
Date (published): 20/09/2011
Date (accessed): 21/09/2011
Type of information: blog post/research report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"A research study on the role of mobile phones in the slums (favelas) of Rio de Janeiro investigates the power structures of how mobile phones influence social interactions and values among favela residents. Written by Adriana de Souza e Silva, Daniel M. Sutko, Fernando A. Salis, and Claudio de Souze e Silva, "Mobile Phone Appropriation in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil" offers a new perspective on the role of mobile phones in low-income areas. The authors point out that Brazil is in a unique position as it has both high-income and low-income residents living in very close proximity. They say:

Studies of developing countries often exclude Brazil because the country is considered an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank (Donner, 2008), but this classification ignores Brazil’s extremely uneven income distribution (UDNP, 2008), which results in roughly 10 percent of the population earning 46 percent of the overall income, while 50 percent makes only 13.3 percent (IPEA, 2005: 52). Despite this income distribution, there are about 203 million cell phones in Brazil (as of December 2010), making Brazil the fifth largest country worldwide in terms of cell phone absolute numbers, with a 104 percent cell phone penetration rate (Teleco, 2011).

The study's focus on favela residents looks at how mobile phones play a role in both low- and high-income populations. "
"This qualitative case study describes the social appropriation of mobile phones among low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) by asking how favela (slum) residents appropriate cell phones. Findings highlight the difficulty these populations encounter in acquiring and using cell phones due to social and economic factors, and the consequent subversive or illegal tactics used to gain access to such technology.

Moreover, these tactics are embedded in and exemplars of the cyclic power relationships between high- and low-income populations that constitute the unique use of mobile technologies in these Brazilian slums. The article concludes by suggesting that future research on technology in low-income communities focus instead on the relationship of people to technology rather than a dichotomization of their access or lack thereof."

Title: Zap It to Me: The Short-Term Impacts of a Mobile Cash Transfer Program
Author Editor: Jenny Aker, Rachid Boumnijel, Amanda McClelland, and Niall Tierney
Pages: 40 pp.
Source: Center for Global Development
Date (published): 20/09/2011
Date (accessed): 21/09/2011
Type of information: research report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"Conditional and unconditional cash transfers have been effective in improving development outcomes in a variety of contexts, yet the costs of these programs to program recipients and implementing agencies are rarely discussed. The introduction of mobile money transfer systems in many developing countries offers new opportunities for a more cost-effective means of implementing cash transfer programs. This paper reports on the first randomized evaluation of a cash transfer program delivered via the mobile phone. In response to a devastating drought in Niger, households in targeted villages received monthly cash transfers as part of a social protection program. One-third of targeted villages received a monthly cash transfer via a mobile money transfer system (called zap), whereas one-third received manual cash transfers and the remaining one-third received manual cash transfers plus a mobile phone. We show that the zap delivery mechanism strongly reduced the variable distribution costs for the implementing agency, as well as program recipients’ costs of obtaining the cash transfer. The zap approach also resulted in additional benefits: households in zap villages used their cash transfer to purchase a more diverse set of goods, had higher diet diversity, depleted fewer assets and grew more types of crops, especially marginal cash crops grown by women. We posit that the potential mechanisms underlying these results are the lower costs and greater privacy of the receiving the cash transfer via the zap mechanism, as well as changes in intra-household decision-making. This suggests that m-transfers could be a cost-effective means of providing cash transfers for remote rural populations, especially those with limited road and financial infrastructure. However, research on the broader welfare effects in the short- and long-term is still needed."

Title: How the UN Foundation Plans to Meet Its Goals With the Help of Social Media
Author: Zachary Sniderman
Source: Mashable
Date (published): 16/09/2011
Date (accessed): 18/09/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"The United Nations (UN) and its philanthropic arm, the United Nations Foundation, have been on a headlong sprint to change the world by 2015. That year marks the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals, a set of far reaching and ambitious humanitarian challenges that include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and providing universal primary education.

They are lofty goals for sure, but ones that the two organizations are committed to achieving. One of their secret weapons has been social media and digital tools, from the UN Foundation’s newly launched mobile app to a history of digital communication and online advocacy.

Mashable caught up with Aaron Sherinian, vice president for communications and PR for the UN Foundation, to talk about the future of social good. "

Title: Mobile Phones and Expanding Human Capabilities
Authors:Matthew L. Smith, Randy Spence, Ahmed T. Rashid
Pages: 12 pp.
ISBN: 1544-7529
e-ISBN: 1544-7537
Source: Information Technologies & International Development; Vol 7, Issue 3 - Mobile Telephony Special Issue, 77-88 pp.
Publisher: USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
Date (published): 09/09/2011
Date (accessed): 13/09/2011
Type of information: Peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"The explosion of mobile phones and their impacts on human well-being have been a central focus of ICT4D research of late (Donner, 2008). This prominence is deserved and should continue in the foreseeable future. This article argues that mobile phones constitute the basis for one of the greatest expansions of human capabilities in known history, and in a remarkably short timeframe. Furthermore, this expansion is expected to continue apace and, more likely, to accelerate. In particular, this article applies Amartya Sen’s capability approach (1999) which highlights expansions of freedoms in areas such as social and governance networks that encourage us to look beyond economic measures of development.
The paper advances with two strands. It begins by conceptually linking mobile phones and the expansion of human capabilities. It then presents evidence that mobiles have been the platform for a uniquely massive and multidimensional enhancement of capabilities in developing countries. Following this, the paper reflects on some policy issues and implications, particularly with respect to regulatory reform, universal access, and the uses of mobile communication in increasing non-economic capabilities and freedoms."

Title: CellBazaar: Enabling M-Commerce in Bangladesh
Authors: Ayesha Zainudeen, Rohan Samarajiva, Nirmali Sivapragasam
Pages: 16 pp.
ISBN: 1544-7529
e-ISBN: 1544-7537
Source: Information Technologies & International Development; Vol 7, Issue 3 - Mobile Telephony Special Issue, 61-76 pp.
Publisher: USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
Date (published): 09/09/2011
Date (accessed): 13/09/2011
Type of information: Peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"E-commerce has been seen as a way to reduce friction in the marketplace. It allows larger volumes of transactions to take place than would otherwise be possible in the conventional marketplace, and it effectively expands markets while opening up opportunities for new ones. However, it is heavily dependent on physical infrastructure and other support services; these are often unavailable or inaccessible at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) in developing markets. The rapid proliferation of mobile phones throughout these markets, along with increasingly affordable services, creates opportunity to take the benefits of such applications to the BoP segment in these markets. This article examines the case of CellBazaar, a mobile-based electronic marketplace (e-marketplace) in Bangladesh, perhaps the first of its kind to reach the BoP in a developing market. It is a real-time collection of classified advertisements accessible even through the most basic mobile phone. Taking CellBazaar as a starting point, this article explores the potential for providing a wider range of e-marketplace services, including secure payment and delivery of the goods/services traded in a country with a significant BoP population such as Bangladesh; it looks at some of the obstacles that may arise in such a setting and discusses possible solutions."

Title: Are the Poor Stuck in Voice? Conditions for Adoption of More-Than-Voice Mobile Services
Authors: Ayesha Zainudeen, Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara
Pages: 15 pp.
ISBN: 1544-7529
e-ISBN: 1544-7537
Source: Information Technologies & International Development; Vol 7, Issue 3 - Mobile Telephony Special Issue, 45-59 pp.
Publisher: USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
Date (published): 09/09/2011
Date (accessed): 13/09/2011
Type of information: Peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"Mobile phone access is widespread in Asia; voice connectivity has been achieved for the most part through intense competition, with prices being driven down to almost unsustainable levels. Against the backdrop of intense competition, new services and applications, such as price information alerts, news alerts, mobile money applications, and mobile Internet services, may provide new revenue sources, allowing operators to expand services. More important, from a development perspective, they also offer a way to get information and services with lower transaction costs to customers at the “bottom of the pyramid.” This article examines the use of such “more-than-voice” services among telecom users at the bottom of the pyramid in emerging Asia. Through a logistical regression model, it attempts to understand what factors can predict their use in order to inform operators on how they can better serve these markets, and to educate policymakers on how they can assist with policies that will favor greater access."

Title: Bottom of the Pyramid Expenditure Patterns on Mobile Services in Selected Emerging Asian Countries
Authors: Aileen Agüero, Aileen Agüero, Juhee Kang
Pages: 14 pp.
ISBN: 1544-7529
e-ISBN: 1544-7537
Source: Information Technologies & International Development; Vol 7, Issue 3 - Mobile Telephony Special Issue, 19-32 pp.
Publisher: USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
Date (published): 09/09/2011
Date (accessed): 13/09/2011
Type of information: Peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"This article analyzes patterns of expenditure on mobile phone services at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP), following users in six Asian countries: Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Thailand. We examine whether mobile phone services in the selected countries display characteristics of a luxury good or those of a necessity. We first evaluate the expenditure patterns of mobile phone services among five income groups within the BoP. Then, we estimate the income elasticity of mobile phone services using Engel curves. Based on these analyses, we conclude that mobile phone services are necessities at the BoP. We also find that any increase in price or tax adds the greatest burden on the poorest of the poor. We argue that the current high tax on mobile phone services in developing countries in Asia has an adverse effect on the poor."