Several months ago, MobileActive.org partnered with UN Global Pulse to implement a mobile phone survey across multiple countries including Uganda, India, Mexico, Ukraine and Iraq, as part of a two-part project on mobile data collection.
UN Global Pulse was interested in gaining a preliminary understanding of how vulnerable populations deal with and describe (in their own words) the ongoing impacts of the global economic crisis.
The survey asked two simple multiple choice and three open-ended questions focusing on economic perceptions:
Does ICT Benefit the Poor? Evidence from South Africa data sheet 3230 Views
Author:
Stefan Klonner, Patrick Nolen
Publication Date:
May 2008
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The authors study the economic effects of the roll-out of mobile phone network coverage in rural South Africa, addressing identification issues which arise from the fact that network roll-out cannot be viewed as an exogenous process to local economic development.
The authors combine spatially coded data from South Africa's leading network provider with annual labor force surveys, and use terrain properties to construct an instrumental variable that allows us to identify the causal effect of network coverage on economic outcomes under plausible assumptions.
The study finds substantial effects of cell phone network roll-out on labor market outcomes with remarkable gender-specific differences. Employment increases by 15 percentage points when a locality receives network coverage. A gender-differentiated analysis shows that most of this effect is due to increased employment by women. Household income increases in a pro-poor way when cellular infrastructure is provided.
The Power of Information: The Impact of Mobile Phones on Farmers' Welfare in the Philippines data sheet 3510 Views
Author:
Julien Labonne, Robert S. Chase
Publication Date:
Jul 2009
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The authors explore the impact of access to information on poor farmers' consumption. The analysis combines spatially coded data on mobile phone coverage with household panel data on farmers from some of the poorest areas of the Philippines.
Both the ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimates indicate that purchasing a mobile phone has a large, positive impact on the household-level growth rate of per capita consumption. Estimates range from 11 to 17 percent, depending on the sample and the specification chosen.
The authors perform a range of reliability tests, the results of which all suggest that the instruments are valid. They also present evidence consistent with the argument that easier access to information allows farmers to strike better price deals within their existing trading relationships and to make better choices in terms of where they choose to sell their goods.
Kutoma Wakunumadid a great presentation at MobileActive08 on her research that investigates whether women are benefitting from mobile technology. In this interview, shot by ICT4D.at at MobileActive08 in Johannesburg this year, she discusses how women are using mobile tech, what some of the barriers are, and social implications of mobile communications for women. A blog post about the discussion we had at MobileActive08 about women and mobile phones is here.
Take a look also at the notes from a session on participatory design for mobile tech with and for women here and an earlier article we wrote about women and mobile technology -- Who Will Join This Standing Up.
Beauticians in Pakistan, sex-workers in Serbia, taxi drivers in Thailand. What do they have in common? They're all being helped by mobile phones which make it cheaper to start up businesses, and reduce the cost of operating. Besides sparking off "entrepreneurship," mobiles across the globe are giving a spurt to productivity, says a June 2008 World Bank report on The Role of Mobile Phones in Rural Poverty Reduction.
