Paper Info
Title
A study of connectivity in millennium villages in Africa
Abstract
The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is a community-based comprehensive multi-sectoral approach to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa over a five-year period. MVP and Ericsson's Consumer Lab collaborated to investigate the baseline conditions for enhanced connectivity and integrating mobile telephony in MVP sites. It is hypothesized that this will accelerate the achievement of the MDGs through improved communication and availability of information. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the research team aimed to assess the effects of network strengthening and strategic integration in the context of a rural village in a low-income African country. Four Millennium Village sites were examined for this study on connectivity: Bonsaaso, Ghana; Dertu, Kenya; Ikaram, Nigeria; and Mbola, Tanzania. The survey results from the sites showed common attributes for mobile phone owners but usage trends differed across study sites. Given the results, in three of the four sites, there is a significant market to be explored for voice services to be strengthened and made more easily available in terms of infrastructure and costs. Lessons drawn from these sites can provide us with useful insights into the potential for development and use of mobile phones in the rest of the continent, in addition to providing useful policy implications.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1145/2369220.2369251
Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
Keywords
DocType
Citations 
mobile telephony,millennium village site,millennium development goals,enhanced connectivity,mobile phone owner,millennium village,useful insight,study site,mvp site,millennium villages project,mobile phone,health
Conference
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
12
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jyotsna Puri100.34
Patricia Mechael221.02
Roxana Cosmaciuc300.68
Daniela Sloninsky400.34
Vijay Modi5114.29
Matt Berg600.34
Uyen Kim Huynh700.34
Nadi Nina Kaonga800.34
Seth Ohemeng-Dapaah921.02
Maurice Baraza1000.34
Afolayan Emmanuel1100.34
Sia Lyimo1200.34