From Matatu to the Masai via Mobile

As part of his journey through Kenya using a map of the country's mobile phone networks as his guide, BBC Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason here traces trends in the use of this information and communication technology (ICT) to foster economic and social development.

Mason explains that today 1 in 3 adults carry a cellphone in Kenya; in the past 5 years the number of mobiles in Kenya has grown from 1 million to 6.5 million. In contrast, the number of landlines remains at about 300,000, mostly in government offices. "About 80% of Kenyans are covered by mobile networks and while it would be easy to find a place off the network, finding people there would be difficult."

One new specific development Mason describes in the use of this ICT is the ability to transfer funds via one's cell phone. Safaricom, one of the 2 network providers in Kenya, has recently launched a project called M-Pesa. It consists in an extra line on a mobile phone menu that says: "Send Money". The user goes to an office, transfers funds onto his or her phone account, and then sends the funds to friends, family, or anybody else with a mobile phone. Then, the recipient goes to an office, shows the code on the mobile and an ID, and collects the cash. In Kenya, Mason says, this development is "going to revolutionise things"; credit cards and bank accounts are few and far between in this country, as more than 50% of its people are classed as living in abject poverty. Vodafone (part owner of Safaricom) indicates that this development will go global, at which point, according to the company, "the $93bn of remittance money sent by migrants to developing countries each year could start flowing this way. Basically mobiles could be about to make Africa a very much more liquid economy."

As illustrated by this example, and others Mason offers here, "mobile telephony is having an economic and social impact whose is hard to grasp if you are used to living in a country with good roads, democracy and the internet." In a telling contrast, Kenya's "excellent" mobile network was built in 4 years by Celtel and Safaricom; meanwhile, despite millions of dollars in aid money, Mason observes, the Kenyan government did not finish the main road that links East Africa's main port with the interior...

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