The rhetoric of ICT4D

1. The rhetoric of ICT4D Keynote address at the Canadian Association of African Studies Annual Conference Africa communicating: Digital Technologies, Representation, Power, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 1-3 May, 2013 GadoAlzouma American University of Nigeria

2. The rhetoric of ICT4D: main assumptions • Computers, the Internet, and mobile phones have the ability to promote economic and social development in Africa and hasten the continent’s entry into the information age = a leapfrogging development. • ICTs are all-encompassing • ICTs have a levelling effect • Smartphones and convergent technologies will increase the access to the Internet and erase the digital divide. • ICTs are ubiquitous and ‘’flexible’’, interactive technologies that have sparked ‘’innovative’’ uses and appropriations by Africans

3. There is no doubt that Africa is changing • Average economic growth rate of 5.5% between 2001 and 2010 • Expected growth rate of 6.2% in 2013 • 6 countries out the 10 that have the highest growth rate in the world are Africa countries: Angola (11.1%); Nigeria (8.9%); Ethiopia (8.4%); Chad (7.9%); Mozambique (7.9%); Rwanda (7.6%). Source: IMF, Regional Economic Outlook: sub-Saharan Africa, 2012. • 7 African countries will be among the world’s 10 fastest growing countries before 2016. Source: IMF, Regional Economic Outlook: sub-Saharan Africa, 2012. • Over the next five years ‘’the average African economy will outpace its Asian counterpart’’. (The Economist, January 6t, 2011).

4. There is no doubt that this change is positive • Average per capita wealth grew by 3.5% over the last ten years. • More African children attend school than ever. • Democratic elections, although still very controversial, are held in most African countries. • Civil wars are not still things of the past, but there are less and less violent conflicts.

5. There is no doubt that ICTs have greatly contributed to those changes • More than 600 million Africans have mobile phones. No other technology has been so rapidly and so widely appropriated by Africans. • Helping Reduce disparities in access to technology between developed and developing countries (global digital divide): ‘’mobile telephony has been able to at least partially tackle the infrastructure barrier and bring communication networks to the previously unconnected.’’ (ITU, The Role of ICT in Advancing growth in least developed countries, Geneva, 2011). • In some sectors (mobile banking; i.e. Safaricom in Kenya) Africa appears to be ‘’more advanced’’ than the most developed countries in the world. • Link between the development of ICTs and GDP growth • Link between the development of ICTs and income-generating activities.

6. No more ‘’dystopian’’ discourse please! • No! I am not going to tell you that ICTs are not useful for African development. They are! • The question is not whether Technology is useful or not. The question is not whether we are ‘’for’’ or ‘’against’’ technology’ • Of course technology is useful and of course computers, the internet and cell phone are a positive change that we have to support. • But once we have said that, did we correctly assess the uses of ICTs in Africa? • Is this the whole story?

7. A few questions • Africa in the information society? • What other opportunities and solutions to development problems are we missing by focusing solely or mainly on ICTs? • In what ways are ICTs reinforcing or weakening existing and new inequalities? • Shouldn’t we go beyond equipping people with ICTs?

8. My main arguments • The rationale behind the rhetoric of ICT4D is to equip people with technologies, not to empower them. The emphasis is on technology, always technology, not people. • Faced with a development problem, the reflex is always is to seek a technological solution. Example: Faced with illiterate users, the reflex would be to develop ‘’adapted’’ technologies for illiterate users not to eliminate illiteracy. • This supposes that there is only one side of development: the lack of technology. Once we have solved the technological side of development, we have solved all the problems. • Which amounts to ignoring the many other sides of development: lack of education, lack of basic amenities, etc.

9. Africa in the information society? • Africa only has 7% of the Internet users in the world (Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm). • 84% of the African population never uses Internet (Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm). • Some countries such as Burundi (1.7%), Chad (1.9%), DRC (1.2%), Ethiopia (1.1%), Guinea (1.3%), Niger (1.3%), Sierra Leone(1.3%), Somalia (1.2%) have less than 2% Internet users. • Morocco has the highest percentasge of users with 51%. • Conclusion: the celebrated entry of Africa into the information society is solely based on the numbers of mobile phone users. • Africa still lags far behind in Internet usage

10. Are ICTs all-encompassing? • Mobile phone and the Internet for: poverty eradication, education (Harvard at your fingertips), health, agriculture, good governance, gender equality, etc. • Eldis: 1227 documents (http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/icts-for-development#.Ua6ZyNJllx5).

11. Are mobile phones all-encompassing? (ELDIS website: http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/icts-for-development#.Ua6ZyNJllx5Ctnd. • Mobile Phones: An Appropriate Tool For Conservation And Development?K. Banks; R. Burge / Fauna & Flora International, 2004. • Mobiles and impoverished households in JamaicaDaniel Miller / id21 Development Research Reporting Service, 2007. • Using mobile phones in fundraising campaignsM. Stein / MobileActive.org, 2007 • Africa: the impact of mobile phonesVodafone, 2005 pe... • Mobiles phones and development: the future in new hands?RichardHeeks; AbiJagun / id21 Development Research Reporting Service, 2007 • Reinforcing unequal gender relations in ZambiaKutoma J. Wakunuma / id21 Development Research Reporting Service, 2007 • Mobile phones and social activism: an Ethan Zuckerman White PaperKVerclas / MobileActive.org, 2007 • Philippine rural banking goes mobile with GCashJ. Owens; C. Balingit / Microfinance Gateway, CGAP, 2007 • Getting mobile phones beyond the three billion markTim Kelly / id21 Development Research Reporting Service, 2007 • Keeping up with technology: the use of mobile telephony in delivering community-based decentralised animal health services in Mwingi and Kitui Districts, KenyaJ. Kithuka; J. Mutemi; A.,H. Mohamed / Farm Africa, 2007

12. Do ICTs have a leveling effect? The mobile divide • Geser: ‘’By being adopted, irrespective of education and family background, the cell phone bridges at least some gaps between different social classes.’’ (Geser 2004, p. 6). • The INS-UNDP survey (2009) shows that: • rural people, unemployed workers, and people with a low level of education use mobile phone less often than do urban dwellers or those with a high/higher level of education. • This second group of users also spends much more for their mobile phone than does the other group. • The average expenditure in mobile telephony is higher in urban areas than in rural areas.

13. Do ICTs have a leveling effect? Ctnd. • Mobile phone expenses also account for a larger share of the rural household budgets than for urban household budgets. • Among rural people and the poor (in both rural and urban environments), expenditures on mobile phones, although low, weigh more on other expenditures that are essential, such as clothing and food. • indebtment among the group. • These reflect class inequalities. Witte and Mannon: ‘’The most consistent and striking sources of variation were found along the traditional markers of class, namely education and income’’. (2010, p. 113). • Education in general, or what Bourdieu calls cultural capital, is an important dimension of the digital divide in Africa.

14. Smartphones and convergent technologies will increase the access to the Internet and erase the digital divide • Illiteracy = barrier no matter the technological object used. • In Niger over 60.1% of adults cannot read or write • These rates are even more important when it comes to gender literacy since 80% of women can neither write or read. (Macro International, 2007). • Going beyond physical availability: people may well have the material means to appropriating cultural goods (namely the economic capital) at least relatively as in the case of radios, televisions, and mobile phones, and yet lack the symbolic means (the cultural capital) to access technical goods (computers and the Internet).

15. Smartphones and convergent technologies will increase the access to the Internet and erase the digital divide. Ctnd. • skills and competencies) have obvious consequences for patterns of mobile phone use. • Use of SMS; browsing the web; access to social media; etc. • Illiterate people tend to focus on audio and video functionalities • Smartphones are also more expensive. Poor people tend to choose ordinary phones (and uses are limited to calling and receiving calls only). • ‘’The price of the cheapest mobile phone...in Niger is equivalent to 12.5 kilograms of millet, enough to feed a household of five for five days.’’ (Aker & Mbiti 2010, p. 5).

16. ‘’Innovative’’ uses? • ‘’Innovative’’ usage patterns: • ‘’Beeping’’ • Sharing (multiple users) • Use of second hand phones • Social networks building: for preferential rates and cost reduction • Resourcefulness: climbing trees to receive calls • Credit transfer • Using the phone as a radio, as a lamp or as a watch (convergence). • Domestication, creolization, mixigenisation, etc.

17. But who are the ‘’innovative users’’? • Making virtue out of necessity • The reason for these ‘’innovations’’ is to be found in the extreme material and technological poverty of the environment • Poverty explains the invention of alternative solutions to cope with lack of resources • The ‘’innovative’’ solutions are a mark of inequality and differential access between users

18. Conclusion • The rhetoric of ICT4D tends to obscure the above-mentioned problems • It tends to make us believe that poverty and development problems only have one dimension: the technological dimension. • Integrated solutions to development • Empowered people better benefit from the use of technology (social capital).