MyAdhan Blog

Viewpoint: Pakistan: Mobile phones, a new development tool?

Mobile phone penetration now vastly exceeds internet usage around the world. Regions of the world where mobile phone use is growing fastest include the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia. The potential for technology to help secure prosperity for all is oft repeated. In the past few decades, several information and communication technologies (ICTs) have also been developed that can promote various development goals like increasing the socio-economic and political participation of previously marginalised people. Such development-oriented ICTs include e-government, e-business, e-learning, and even e-health applications. However, owing to the unavailability of required infrastructure, and a lack of rudimentary skills, such as the ability to read, poor people in remote areas of most developing countries still find it difficult to use available ICT applications for self-empowerment. It is the responsibility of development practitioners to realise this problem and begin offering solutions that can deliver results, despite the existing constraints…