Comments on: Mobile phones make it work

By: Kevin Painting

Kevin Painting — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:14:00 +0000

Apart from the difficulties in administering this (and yes it will require middle men) trying to guage its effectiveness will be problematic. Also, mobile costs are pretty horendous in Africa – in Rwanda, for example, 4 minutes of local mobile communication or 10 SMSes constitutes an entire day’s wage for a labourer. Steve Song http://manypossibilities.net/ has written in depth about these issues.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:15:00 +0000

Good question. In a way, I don’t care, if each number can receive only $2.50 a year. But with the cooperation of the mobile phone companies, one could target accounts with lower turnover, say the bottom quintile in a country. Or specifically target phones in rural areas. There would be ways.

The poor people without phones would continue to be a problem, I agree, and your suggestion might trickle down to them, though I doubt it.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:58:52 +0000

How do you know which phoneholders are poor?

How would you reach the poor people without phones? (Perhaps something like: “Keep 1.25 and give 1.25 away to the poorest person you know.”)