Cellphones Leapfrog Poor Infrastructure in Mali

Hugh Pickens writes "CBC News has up an article by Peace Corps volunteer Heidi Vogt, a woman who served in the small village of Gono in Mali five years ago and remembers letters dictated and hand-carried by donkey cart or bicycle to the next town. Vogt recently returned to see the changes that cellphone communications have made in a village that still doesn't have electricity or decent drinking water. 'Gono's elders say the phones can keep them in touch with their village diaspora,' writes Vogt. 'Villagers depend on far-off relatives to send money in time of crisis — if someone is sick, if a house has caught fire, if there's been too little or too much rain and the harvest is poor. There's a new sense of connection to a larger world. In a village where most people can't read or write, they can now communicate directly with far-off relatives.'"

Comments

Re:Preemption

[LehiNephi]

GP may not, but I can. I spent about half of last year in Chad for work. The situation there is similar to that described in the article--lots of people have cell phones, but nobody has electricity, running water, or sanitation systems. Nobody forced these people to get cell phones first. These people decided to spend their own hard-earned money in this manner. At some point in the future, I'm sure they'll get running water and electricity, but for now, this is what they've decided to do with their money.

It's capitalism at its finest--let the people decide for themselves what is most deserving of their money.

Re:Preemption

[Neuticle]

I have personally seen this in action. A few villages over from where I was living in Africa there was a fertile patch of land that was a tomato producing machine, and I mean buckets-and-bushels -piled-high-year-round kind of production. One guy with no other job (like most) figured out that he could make money transporting tomatoes if he bought cheap at the source and sold them in town at the going rate. The bulk rate fluctuated at either end, and it was only worth his time when the prices were right, but that is where the cell phone came in (motorized transport costs would have eaten any profit and it was a grueling bike-ride/push).

Even though he didn't do it more than a few times, I was impressed with the idea.

And I still have no idea how they grew so many bloody tomatoes in that place. It was insane