[governance] Africa, ICT and electricity

Fri Sep 14 09:10:39 EDT 2007

David wrote:
  "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."

  Good point David. I was in Sierra Leone sometime this year as a volunteer for a Charitable organisation involved with street children and you have no idea how much of a shock I, an frican, had. Freetown, the capital town, has no power supply as a result those who can afford resort to power generators. Mobile phone charging is therefore a booming business. People have set up small shops where you go and charge your battery powered equipments. It costs 500 Leones (about 17 cents) to charge 1 battery meaning if you have a mobile phone and you charge it just once a day, you are going to spend 17 cents. It also costs 1,000 Leones (about 34 cents) to use the Internet for 1 hour at an Internet cafe. So charging your mobile phone just once a day and staying on the Internet for just an hour a day will cost 51 cents. And I'm talking about a country where more than 75% lives under $2 a day.

  Getting your mobile phone charged even depends on the guy who owns the shop. Sometimes he opens the shop late and imagine if you have to leave the house at by 9AM and the shop is still not open. There was a day that the shop close to my house didn't open because the owner's son was ill and I needed to charge my batteries (video camera, digital camera, digital audio recorder, and mobile phone). I had an appointment for an interview at 10 AM and some others afterwards. I had to cancel some of the appointments because there was no way I could attend to the first appointment, get the batteries charged and attend to the others.

  I'm not being negative here, but unless certain fundamental infrastructure, like electricity, is in place, every effort at tackling the digital divide will be frustrated. You can send free computers and mobile phones to the people and yet they will find it difficult to stay connected.

  The Sierra Leone situation is not too different from what happens in towns and villages outside the capitals in Africa. You still have power rationing and frequent outages even in the capital cities.

  I think what we have to be doing is to take a reflection on how much effort and resources have been pumped into bridging the digital divide and see whether the gains match up. If not, which I think is the case, then we should look for appropriate models that would suit each particular environment.

  Kwasi

  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) - Ghanas 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
COOGEE NSW 2034
AUSTRALIA
email: Goldstein_David @yahoo.com.au
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

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