Win-win Mobiles

Article

An Overseas Development Institute opinion piece surveying evidence on how mobile phones drive economic growth in developing countries, where subscriber growth—particularly in Africa, at over 50% a year—was the fastest in the world. Citing research finding that a 10-percentage-point difference in mobile penetration corresponds to a 0.6% difference in growth rates, the piece sets out three ways mobiles create value: incremental gains such as cheaper communication for fishermen checking market prices, transformational services like m-banking, and new livelihoods such as airtime reselling.