Beyond entrepreneurship: role of mobile phone technology in mobilising civil society in Africa

That mobile phone technology is sweeping Africa by storm is just a fact. Africa is said to be the fastest-growing mobile market in the world growing at the rate of 20% per year over the last 5 years. The number of subscribers is expected to be in excess of 735 million (more than half the population) by the end of 2012. Beyond creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and enabling communication across the continent, mobile phone technology has been put to further use in ways that are as innovative and creative as the people of the continent. In countries like Kenya, mobile banking has opened up people’s access to money; been able to receive money by text – a valuable resource for those who can’t afford to open bank accounts.

In a continent where there has always been a tendency to look at the development glass as half empty rather than half full, it is reassuring that in spite of multiple constraints, people are being empowered to do more with what is readily available.

One area without a doubt that requires continuous improvement is that of birth registration. According to UNICEF, there are approximately 66 million unregistered children in sub-Saharan Africa. With these vast numbers of children unaccounted for, it makes planning for children difficult; whilst also making tackling issues like child labour a herculean task. It is no wonder that the region is one in which children in hazardous labour are on the rise as opposed to the decline in other areas.
I was therefore excited when I found out about an initiative that has been piloted in a rural part of Senegal – birth registration using mobile phones. In the Kolda region of Southern Senegal, only there had previously been a high drop-out rate from schools as children’s births were rarely registered and they were therefore unable to write exams as a result. Swiss NGO Aide et Action introduced the system in September 2011 whereby parents unable to afford the cost of travelling to a registration centre can give the information to the village chief who in turn sends the government registrar a text message at one-sixths of the normal cost of registration. Security of information is ensured using a coding system. In 3 moths, 20 births have been registered and there are now plans to roll out the initiative in 500 villages across Southern and Eastern Senegal. The link to the full article is below:
http://allafrica.com/stories/201208100527.html

What the above example shows is that it doesn’t have to cost huge sums of money and cumbersome bureaucratic systems to address some pertinent issues in SSA. With the success of this scheme in Senegal, there is no reason why it can’t be rolled out across rural SSA. The cautionary tale (there’s got to be one lest we get too carried away) though is that there has to be political will to put a stop to schemes that might undermine the initiative’s success.

For example in a country like Nigeria, a court-issued document referred to as: “statutory declaration of age” makes a mockery of the whole birth registration process. Anyone can go to a court house, lie under oath to obtain fictional birth registration details. In this instance, it will be necessary for the said declarations to be banned by law making it mandatory for children born after the passing of the law to be registered. If it is made clear that children can’t be registered for school exams without a proper registration of birth, this will serve as an incentive for parents to get used to the idea and of course the text service registration if it gets that far will make it lots easier for rural communities.


Some might think that my suggestion is discriminatory but in actual fact it isn’t. In many parts of SSA where rules have been routinely broken for decades, without this kind of ‘stick and carrot’ mechanism, a lot of things won’t change in SSA. If people know that the key to their children’s futures lie in the registration of birth at no initial cost to them, take-up for the initiative will rise. Governments have to see this as a priority and ensure that databases are maintained accurately and efficiently.
I would love to get people’s comments on this – at least there is a better alternative – let’s be very grateful for mobile phones.
Until the next time…………