accelerating growth

November 30, 2011 at 10:54 am Leave a comment

Transforming lives – CNN reports on the key role of the phone, in the fight against poverty.

Leading the way is the evolution of new mobile banking and payment models, tailored to local needs.

Uplifting.

“The cell phone is the single most transformative technology for development,” said Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of the 2005 book “The End of Poverty.”

“Poverty is almost equated with isolation in many places of the world. Poverty results from the lack of access to markets, to emergency health services, access to education, the ability to take advantage of government services and so on,” Sachs said. “What the mobile phone — and more generally IT technology — is ending is that kind of isolation in all its different varieties.”

Moreover, the profusion of payment services via cell phones puts places like Kenya and Uganda in the vanguard of mobile financial services. “You can walk in the middle of rural village in Rwanda and use a mobile phone to pay at a recharging station to recharge LED lights,” says Amanda Gardiner, acting program manager of Business Call to Action, a New York-based non-profit organization that is helping to bring more mobile phones to Africa’s rural poor.