Cell phones make Peace?
Author: Simon Stander
Originally Published at Peace and Conflict Monitor on: 03/14/2005
All sorts of proposals have been
made to drag warring nations out of violent conflict, especially in Africa, and ensure that the ensuing peace brings dividends
in the form of increased welfare. Very generally speaking poverty is bad, and if
policies can be initiated to decrease the incidence of poverty and find ways to
achieve economic growth (sustainable or otherwise) peace might find a way of
staying imbedded in the society thus created.
The latest observation has been
that there appears to be a close relationship between mobile or cellular phones
and economic growth. Says who? A study backed by UK based multinational Vodaphone argues that
mobile phone use has increased faster in Africa
as a whole than anywhere else in the world. The report, supported by the Centre
for Economic Policy Research, shows that high rates of economic growth occur
where mobile phone use is highest, despite the obvious fact that in the
proportion of the total population using mobile phones is the lowest in the
world.
The Report said, according to the
BBC:
- More than 85% of small businesses
run by black people, surveyed in South Africa, rely solely on mobile
phones for telecommunications. - 62% of businesses in
South Africa, and 59% in
Egypt, said mobile use was linked
to an increase in profits – despite higher call costs.
- 97% of people surveyed in
Tanzania said they could access a
mobile phone, while just 28% could access a land line phone.
A developing country
which has an average of 10 more mobile phones per 100 population between 1996
and 2003 had 0.59% higher GDP growth than an otherwise identical
country.
It has long been
observed that countries regarded as late industrialisers have the advantage of
being able to leap-frog technologies. In the case of cell phones in Africa, this
is a phenomenon we are clearly seeing and is acknowledged by Stephen Yeo, chief
executive of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, which hosted the launch of
the report on 8 March (2005). He confirmed that mobile phones had enabled
developing countries to “leapfrog” old technologies. The BBC notes that “this
research… provides the first empirical evidence of a link between social and
economic development and the establishment of mobile phone networks.”
But does it? This is
the problem with causality. Does A cause B or vice a versa? In this case can you
say, alternatively, that those countries experiencing economic growth turn to
mobile phones as they expand? Are the two, growth and mobile phones, simply
pari passu?
Vodaphone would hope
that the report is right and that a giant multinational company can bring
developmental benefits. Meanwhile there are those who would argue that the
hunger for coltan, the key rare mineral required for cell phones, has pretty
well destroyed the Congo. You pay your money, you er-
get your cell phone. Whatever happens Vodapone should be doing OK. At the time
of writing, there are 82 million mobile phone users in Africa and the number
grows daily (less so in the Congo,
ironically).
Bio: Simon Stander is the an Associate Professor of Peace Studies at the University for Peace
