The Problem:
Poverty, lack of opportunities etc
The Social Invention:
A mobile phone project in Bangladesh provides telecommunication services to the rural poor whilst simultaneously providing women villagers with a good, sustainable earning opportunity. The Village Phone programme works very simply: the Grameen Bank (the renowned micro-credit lending bank) provides a loan to a rural woman villager to enable her to buy a handset and a subscription to a mobile phone service; having been trained how to use it, and how to charge for the use of it, she then operates the mobile as a village pay-phone. As well as providing a crucial telephone service to rural areas where no such facilities previously existed, the scheme allows thousands of Bangladeshi women to earn a living, often at more than twice the average annual income.
' Over 50,000 Grameen phone ladies make their living through the scheme'
The telephone service has had a substantial impact in the country, with tens of thousands of village phones in operation, serving a potential 50 million-strong body of consumers. There are thought to be over 50,000 Grameen phone ladies making a living through the scheme, resulting in increased respect and financial independence. Indeed, one of the main benefits of the programme has been to increase the social standing of the so-called phone ladies, as they have become one of the most important people in the village. With their added financial independence, the women can then afford to send their children to school, to build new houses or to invest in other projects.
'A single phone call can replace a long, expensive trip to the nearest city'The economic impact is much greater than merely providing the Bangaladeshi women with the means to earn a wage, though. A single phone call can replace a long trip to the nearest city, allowing more time to be spent on the farm or in the village; in this way, telephone access can benefit the whole village economically. Villagers who sell goods in the cities can call beforehand to check prices, preventing possibly wasted journeys, while others can send and receive news from friends and relatives. The access to information that a phone network provides, which much of the world takes for granted, can vastly improve the quality of life for people in the villages. When that is combined with the phenomenon of rural women using new technology to alleviate poverty, then this is truly a social invention providing people with the means to enact social change in their own lives.
- Grameen Village Phone, Sylhet Info Center, Parkul House, Airport Road, Mojumdari, Ambarkhana, Sylhet, Bangladesh
(tel: +880 0821 720785; web: GrameenPhone.com).
Summarised from an article by Alfred Hermida, entitled ‘Mobile money spinner for women’, on the BBC News website (October 8th 2002; http://news.bbc.co.uk), and from information on the Grameen Phone website (www.grameenphone.com). The former item was monitored for the Global Ideas Bank by Michael Norton.
Update-phone use spreading to beggars
Summarized from an article in "Reuters" online (September 14, 2004)
The Grameen Bank, which is famous for giving more than 75,000 women in Bangledesh mobile phones, is starting a new program of the same nature but with street beggars.
The phone costs 8,500 taka (80 pounds) but the initially cost to the beggars would be nothing because the bank would enable them to repay the money over two years. Once the beggars get the mobile phones they are responsible for paying the monthly serve fee of 152 taka.
Dipal Chandra Barua, deputy manging director of the bank, is not unrealistic of the future, "we won't ask them (beggars) to stop begging immediatly but would encourage them to ask people they stretch hands to if they need to make a phone call". Barau said, the program will be mainly directed at rural beggars because they make much less of an income then the city beggars. The bank is hoping for as much success as they have seen with the "phone ladies".
|
