Is communication technology the key to unlocking Africa’s potential?

When the tragic Nepalese earthquake struck several weeks ago, the world knew instantly. Our minds turned to the perilous position of climbers stranded in the Himalayas and those trapped without communications in the shanty huts below.

Where rescuers and aid workers were unable to access, communications stepped up. Google and Facebook activated person finder features. Voice messaging service Viber made calls from country free. And telecoms providers fought the elements to restore internet access to aid rescue efforts.

I can’t predict how many lives were saved or people found through communications technology. No one can. What I can say is that in instances like this, and many others, communications technology has the power to connect people around the world in ways never imaginable previously.

Yet we live in a world where nearly two thirds of the population remain off-grid. Or, to put it differently, some 4 billion men, women and children have no internet access. It should be no surprise to learn that 90% of those live in developing economies. And in Africa, just 20% of people use the internet.

I believe companies like BT have a humanitarian responsibility to close that gap over the coming years. Not just because communications technology can save people’s lives, helping limit human tragedy. But because it has the potential to improve them, and dramatically.

Sub-Saharan Africa, host to this week’s World Economic Forum on Africa 2015, is one of the globe’s most underprivileged areas. GDP per capita barely reaches $3,500 with infant mortality remaining stubbornly close to 5%.

Yet the region is vibrant with potential. Home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies, rich with innovation and endeavour. Communications technology could be the key to unlocking that potential.

Today, mobile phones are as common in South Africa and Nigeria as they are in the United States. However, the number of people online, connected to the world around them, remains woefully low.

Innovations in smart phone technology, however, which are reducing the cost of devices to below $50, means that within five years internet use on mobile phones could increase 20-fold – double the rate of growth in the rest of the world. The potential for the 635m mobile phone users across Africa is clear.

It’s worth reflecting for a few moments to unpick what this actually means. Consider the rising rate of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the continent. By 2030, the World Bank estimates that NCDs will account for 42% of all mortalities in the region, surpassing those of communicable diseases like AIDs. Yet the healthcare infrastructure in these countries – the provision of localised and long-term health advice, care workers and medicines – in its current state will be unable to cope.

One of the solutions to tackling what may be a silent ticking time bomb has to be communication.

Projects in Kenya aim to support partnerships with local healthcare workers with mobile phone technology to enable the communication of information on healthy eating, exercise and preventative treatment for acute physical ailments for hard to reach communities in rural areas.

Mobile telephony has been critical to tackling some of the continent’s ongoing epidemics. The Roll Back Malaria Partnership in Tanzania uses a combination of mobile phones, text, the internet and electronic mapping to prevent stock-outs of essential anti-malarials in rural areas. In doing so, it increases access to essential medicines, ultimately reducing the number of deaths from malaria.

What’s clear to me from these examples and my years in the industry is that communications technology underpins so many aspects of what we as humans do.

From the mobile phone call that requested me to write this blog post, the internet I used to research it, the tele-meeting I had with my colleagues in London to discuss it.

Yet many are locked-out by lack of access, disempowered by being ‘digitally under-served’. And that’s not just important for tackling healthcare and education problems; it’s a problem for sustaining economic development in some of the world’s poorest regions.

Let me illustrate the point. A young fisherman in South Africa gets access to wifi through a public hub. It’s not the speeds we may be used to, but enough to allow access to an online resource on computer programming, which he uses to teach himself the basics of website coding. A few months later an old school friend e-mails him to tell him about a global online freelancers network, Upwork, which he signs up to.

A few days later he gets his first client, a woman in Southampton who wants to enable an e-commerce plugin on her website, allowing her to sell jewellery made from recycled bike parts to customers. Our young fisherman earns his first freelancer pay check, all because his problem solving skills were connected halfway around the globe to a problem holder through communications technology. It’s a story of enabling and empowering micro-entrepreneurs the world over access to markets that were never before possible.

That’s why my company supports public wifi access programmes in some of the world’s most underprivileged regions, such as –  through a partnership with Coca-Cola Fortune – the provision of free internet access through refreshment cooling dispensers in the Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape provinces in South Africa. And I’d like to think that by scaling these sorts of initiatives we can connect millions more like our fisherman globally.

Is communications technology the panacea to some of our biggest societal challenges? The short answer is that there is no panacea. But what is clear is that through the increasing proliferation of mobile phone technology, internet access and communications, we can give access to essential healthcare to millions and connect even more to the opportunities of the global marketplace.

The World Economic Forum on Africa 2015 takes place in Cape Town, South Africa from 3-5 June.

Author: Oliver Fortuin, country manager, sub-Saharan Africa, BT Group, South Africa

Image: Duncan Onyango, a game design developer at Planet Rackus works on MA3Racer, a 2D mobile game inside his studio in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, July 15, 2014. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya