Anita Akpire prepared fried rice in her kitchen in the Ghanaian capital as her phone buzzed with notifications for restaurant orders. “I don’t think I can function without a phone in my line of business,” she said, when requests came in for her signature dish, a traditional fermented dumpling.
Internet-enabled phones have changed many lives, but they may play a unique role in sub-Saharan Africa, where infrastructure and public services are among the least developed in the world, said Jenny, a professor who studies the issue at Tufts University. Akar said. At times, technology in Africa has overcome shortcomings, including providing access to mobile money for those without bank accounts.
Despite growing mobile internet coverage on the continent of 1.3 billion people, only 25% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa have access, according to Claire Sibthorpe, head of digital inclusion at UK-based mobile phone lobbying group GSMA. Expense is the main hurdle. Sibthorpe said the cheapest smartphones cost up to 95% of the monthly wages of the poorest 20% of the region’s population.
Literacy rates are lower than the global average, and many African languages lack services – about 2,000 languages are spoken across the continent, according to The African Language Programme. Harvard University – There are other reasons why smartphones are not an attractive investment for some people.
“If you buy a car, it’s so you can drive it,” said Alain Capo-Chichi, chief executive of CERCO Group, a company that has developed a smartphone that works through voice commands. And available in 50 African languages like Yoruba. Swahili and Wolof.
Even in Ghana, where the common language is EnglishKnowing how to use smartphones and apps can be a challenge for newcomers.
A new company in Ghana is trying to bridge the digital divide. Unity Networks provides financing to help make smartphones more affordable and trains users to navigate the platform with its apps.
For Cyril Fianyo, a 64-year-old farmer from Ghana’s Eastern Volta region, phones have expanded his activities beyond calls and texts. Using his identity card, he registered with Unity, put down a deposit of 340 Ghanaian cedis ($25) for a smartphone and would pay the remaining 910 cedis ($66) in installments.
They were shown how to navigate to apps they were interested in, including a third-party agriculture app called Coco Link that provided videos of planting techniques, weather information, and details about the challenges of climate change Which has affected cocoa and other crops.
Fianyo, who previously farmed according to his intuition and had little interaction with agricultural advisors, was optimistic that this technology would increase his yields.
“I will know the right time to plant trees because of the weather forecast,” he said.
Kami Dar, chief executive of Unity Networks, said mobile internet could help address other challenges, including access to health care. The company has launched in five communities across Ghana with 650 participants and wants to reach 100,000 users within five years.
Scholar Akar said the potential impact of mobile phones across Africa is huge, but he said there is limited evidence that paid health or agriculture apps are benefiting people there. He stressed that the only beneficial effect is the reminder to take the medicine or get vaccinated.
After studying agricultural apps and their impact, he said it did not appear that farmers were getting better prices or improving their incomes.
CERCO Group’s Capo-Chichi said the lack of useful apps and content is another reason why more people in Africa are not buying smartphones.
Dar said that Unity Network learns from mistakes. A pilot project designed to help cocoa farmers in northern Ghana contribute to their pensions had high participation, but farmers did not find the app user-friendly and needed additional coaching. Following feedback, the pension provider changed the interface to improve navigation.
Others are benefiting from Unity’s platform. Mavufemor Vitor, a church secretary in Hoho, said a health app has helped her track her menstrual cycle to help prevent pregnancy. And farmer Fianyo has used the platform to access information about herbal medicine.
But mobile phones are no substitute for investment in public services and infrastructure, Akar said.
He also expressed concern about data privacy in the hands of private technology providers and governments. Akar said that with digital IDs in development in African countries such as Kenya and South Africa, this could pave the way for further abuse.
Unity Networks is a profitable business, getting paid for every customer that signs up for its paid apps. Dar stressed that he is not targeting vulnerable populations to sell unnecessary services and said Unity only offers apps that are in line with its idea of impact, with a focus on health, education, finance and agriculture. Are.
Dar said Unity had rejected lucrative approaches from several companies, including gambling firms. ,Technique Can be used for terrible things,” he said.
He acknowledged that Unity tracks users on the platform to provide incentives in the form of free data and to provide feedback to app developers. He acknowledged that users’ health and financial data could be at risk from an external attack, but said Unity has decentralized data storage in an effort to reduce the risk.
Still, the potential to provide solutions may outweigh the risks, Aker said, noting two areas where the technology could be transformative: education and insurance.
He said mobile phones could help eliminate illiteracy which still affects 773 million people worldwide according to UNESCO. Increasing access to insurance, which is still not widely used in some parts of Africa, could provide protection to millions of people who face shocks from climate change and on the front lines of conflict.
In Fanyo’s field, its new smartphone has attracted curiosity. “This is something I would like to be a part of,” said neighboring farmer Godsway Kwamigah.
,
Thompson reported from Dakar, Senegal.
,
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. AP Solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropy, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas on AP.org.