Right-to-Reply results

From Richard Heeks, Centre for Development Informatics, University of Manchester
April 2008

I think it's a little unfair to describe something as "contaminated" on the basis of a single sentence. And perhaps more interesting to engage with the underlying issue of that sentence: why did so many donors/agencies fail to pick up on mobiles, and why did so many of them go down the telecentre route? A political economy perspective exposing a network of interests and unquestioned assumptions might help us to answer that.

It is more than unfair to suggest that the research reported in Insights represents "anecdotes". That's an inappropriate comment which would be corrected if the articles within the special issue had been read. One would then also see in the Jamaica article specific discussion of use of mobiles for social and emergency communication.

Of course, many of us working in the ICT4D field are "socio-technicals" who understand the importance of context. And there are interesting projects now emerging seeking to integrate mobiles and telecentres. Nonetheless, whether we like it or not, there are players in the development field - including poor communities - making technology trade-off decisions about priorities and investments along the "mobiles vs. telecentres" line. We may seek to educate them away from such simplicities, but we can also sympathise if they opt for the former given the spectacular diffusion and use of mobiles compared with the poor diffusion, impact and sustainability record to date of telecentres.

Richard Heeks
Centre for Development Informatics, University of Manchester, UK
Email: richard.heeks@manchester.ac.uk

From Roger Harris, Roger Harris Associates
April 2008
'Mobile phones and development' provides important insights into the opportunities for using the rapidly expanding network of connected devices for poverty reduction. But the tone of the message is contaminated by its promotion of the sterile debate about mobiles being better than telecentres. A more informed perspective would acknowledge that no technology is inherently superior than any other in the absence of a consideration of how it is used. It's more useful to promote a better understanding of the circumstances that make one technology a better choice than another in a given development situation, and the starting point for this is always a clear articulation of the development objective. Whilst the anecdotes of the article hint at the possibilities with mobiles, there is other research suggesting their main use is for social communications and for handling emergencies, and it cannot be assumed that the benefits cited in the article will accrue to all poor mobile users just because they obtained a mobile phone. There are many disappointments out there arising from a techno-centric approaches to poverty reduction (and more to come I suspect) where the technology has driven the applications rather than the other way round.

Roger Harris
Roger Harris Associates
Email: harris38@netvigator.com
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From Sam Lanfranco, York University, Toronto, Canada
February 2008

The article 'Mobile phones and development' contributes further to our understanding of the mobile phone as the 'Trojan Horse' of the ICT revolution. The development landscape is littered with failed ICT projects, and few lessons learned. Questionable initiatives trying to roll out 'computers for all'continue to surface and flounder.

From the start, at the simplest levels, mobile phones bring net private benefits to users while, in the main, bringing social benefits, as well as local employment. Technical progress moves the phone closer to being a competitor to a mobile computer. New services are sustained by end user demand, not by project funding. The global public (poor and rich) has voted with its feet, and voted mobile.

When it comes to ICT and grassroots development, the development community would do well to build out from the mobile phone base, rather than repeatedly betting everything on other less agile and less suitable technology horses. Part of that build out will involve the fact that lower cost mobile technologies will mean that objects, and not just individuals, will have mobile phone capacity.

Sam Lanfranco
York University, Toronto, Canada
Email: Lanfran@yorku.ca

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