[governance] Africa, ICT and electricity

Wed Sep 12 05:26:18 EDT 2007

Hi Bertrand,

My point was more that with the lack of access to electricity, there will be major impediments to accessing the internet in developing countries such as across much of Africa.

There have been other articles on access by people in developing countries, and there is evidence that many (definitely not most) people are accessing the internet through handheld devices such as smartphones. And the reasons are varied, but even to know when to send produce to markets so they get the best prices. As you mentioned, this is also being done through mobile phone telephony.

There are some articles on my website at http://technewsreview.com.au/cat.php?cat=12 on this.

As for your question:
"If mobile telephony becomes the main communication channel, will that
not mean that Internet access will remain much rarer and more expensive
in these countries?", at a guess, my reply would be yes.

These issues would be something that should be on the agenda for Rio.

Cheers
David

----- Original Message ----
From: Bertrand de La Chapelle <bdelachapelle at gmail.com>
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; David Goldstein <goldstein_david at yahoo.com.au>
Sent: Wednesday, 12 September, 2007 6:11:19 PM
Subject: Re: [governance] Africa, ICT and electricity

(Sorry, I hit the send button inadvertently on the previous post before it was finished)

Hi David,

You mentionned this quote :
"Most Ghanaians do not have access to the internet, in spite of the

proliferation
of ICT in the country, due to cost. Many more Ghanaians have access to
mobile telephony than they have access to the internet."

And said :

Reading
this, it means the future of internet access in much of Africa could be
via handheld devices (mobile phones, smart phones...), and so planning
on governance issues probably should be done with this in mind.

This development of mobile telephony in africa and the relatively slower penetration of other modes of Internet access is an important element because the business models for both are very different. 

At the moment, mobile telephony can be very profitable even in poor
countries because a brief phone call can save a day trip to another
village or town. Therefore, even if the cost per minute is high, the
replacement cost is even higher. But this will mean that the priority of business actors will be on mobile phone networks rather than on general Internet access with cheap monthly fees. Using market forces to develop connectivity is certainly positive and is going to work, but one can wonder if it will be enough to bring the normal Internet Access, and particularly broadband (the second dimension of the digital divide).

If mobile telephony becomes the main communication channel, will that not mean that Internet access will remain much rarer and more expensive in these countries ? 

I wonder if the Access session in the Rio IGF will address this point. 

Best

Bertrand

On 9/12/07, David Goldstein <goldstein_david at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
Hi all,

I've just finished reading an article in The Economist -  Electricity in Africa: The dark continent. See 
http://economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9660077.

This had me thinking back to a discussion here recently on ICT in Africa. The article notes "Africa accounts for over a sixth of the world's population, but

generates only 4% of global electricity. Three-quarters of that is used
by South Africa, Egypt and the other countries along the north African
littoral."

Other points made are "Only 6% of Congolese have access to electricity and more power will be needed to get at the country's trove of minerals. ... Aggreko, a company based in Scotland, is the world's biggest supplier

of temporary electricity in the shape of back-up generators. It meets
up to 50% of Uganda's power needs, and 10% of those of Kenya and
Tanzania. It believes that the global power shortfall in the next
decade will be much greater than predicted, perhaps over 500,000MW. The

ensuing competition for energy, it argues, will see the world split
between those countries whose economies grow faster than their power
consumption and those, including most of Africa, whose power
consumption grows faster than their economies."

There are obviously huge issues in just providing power to much of Africa before the vast majority of the population can even be connected to the internet. And then with a global shortfall of power, where does that leave the ongoing development of ICT?

For those interested in ICT in Africa, I was sent a link to an article on Ghana (thanks Kwasi) - Ghana's internet growth slowed by high cost. See http://myjoyonline.com/features/200709/8441.asp
.

The article starts, "Most Ghanaians do not have access to the internet, in spite of the
proliferation of ICT in the
country, due to cost. Many more Ghanaians have access to mobile telephony than they have access to the internet."

Reading this, it means the future of internet access in much of Africa could be via handheld devices (mobile phones, smart phones...), and so planning on governance issues probably should be done with this in mind. But then, a handheld device of any sort still needs electricity to work. Even if the device can be powered by some form of wind-up mechanism, for example, the infrastructure still needs to b developed, and powered.

Anyway, something to think about.

Cheers
David

---------
David Goldstein
 address: 4/3 Abbott Street
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 email: Goldstein_David @
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 phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile); +61 2 9665 5773 (home)

"Every time you use fossil fuels, you're adding to the problem. Every time you forgo fossil fuels, you're being part of the solution" - Dr Tim Flannery

-- 
____________________
Bertrand de La Chapelle

Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

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