Companies are trying to attract more smartphone users across Africa. But there are risks

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Anita Akpeere prepared fried rice in her kitchen in Ghana’s capital as a flood of restaurant order notifications lit up apps on her phone. “I don’t think I could work without a phone in my line of business,” she said, as orders arrived for her signature dish, a traditional yeast dumpling.

Internet-enabled phones have transformed many lives, but they can play a unique role in sub-Saharan Africa, where infrastructure and public services are among the least developed in the world, said Jenny Aker, a professor who studies the issue at Tufts University. At times, technology in Africa has bridged gaps, including providing access to mobile money to people without bank accounts.

Despite growing mobile Internet coverage on the continent of 1.3 billion people, only 25% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa have access to it, according to Claire Sibthorpe, head of digital inclusion at mobile lobby group GSMA. based in the United Kingdom. Expense is the main barrier. The cheapest smartphone costs up to 95% of the monthly salary of the poorest 20% of the region’s population, Sibthorpe said.

Literacy rates that are below the global average and a lack of services in many African languages ​​— about 2,000 are spoken across the continent, according to Harvard University’s African Languages ​​Program — are other reasons why a smartphone is not an attractive investment for some. .

“If you buy a car, it’s because you can drive it,” said Alain Capo-Chichi, executive president of Grupo CERCO, a company that developed a smartphone that works by voice command and is available in 50 African languages, such as Yoruba, Swahili and Wolof.

Even in Ghana, where the lingua franca is English, knowing how to use smartphones and apps can be a challenge for newcomers.

A new company in Ghana is trying to bridge the digital divide. Uniti Networks offers financing to help make smartphones more accessible and guides users through navigating its app platform.

For Cyril Fianyo, a 64-year-old farmer from the eastern Volta region of Ghana, the telephone has expanded his activities beyond calling and texting. Using his identity card, he registered with Uniti, made a deposit of 340 Ghanaian cedis ($25) for a smartphone and will pay the remaining 910 cedis ($66) in installments.

He was shown how to navigate apps that interested him, including a third-party agricultural app called Cocoa Link, which offers videos of planting techniques, weather information, and details about the climate change challenges facing affected cocoa and other cultures.

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Fianyo, who previously planted according to his intuition and rarely interacts with agricultural consultants, was optimistic that the technology would increase his yields.

“I will know the exact time to plant because of the weather forecast,” he said.

Kami Dar, chief executive of Uniti Networks, said mobile internet could help address other challenges, including access to healthcare. The company launched in five communities in Ghana with 650 participants and aims to reach 100,000 users within five years.

Aker, the academic, noted that the potential impact of mobile phones across Africa is immense, but said there is limited evidence that paid health or agriculture apps are benefiting people in that country. She said the only beneficial impacts are reminders to take medicine or get vaccinated.

After studying agricultural applications and their impact, she said it doesn’t appear that farmers are getting better prices or improving their income.

Capo-Chichi of the CERCO Group said the scarcity of useful apps and content is another reason why more people in Africa are not buying smartphones.

Dar said Uniti Networks learns from mistakes. In a pilot project in northern Ghana designed to help cocoa farmers contribute to their pensions, there was great engagement, but farmers did not find the app easy to use and required additional training. Following feedback, the pension provider changed the interface to improve navigation.

Others are finding benefits in the Uniti platform. Mawufemor Vitor, church secretary in Hohoe, said a health app helped her monitor her menstruation to help prevent pregnancy. And Fianyo, the farmer, has used the platform to find information about herbal medicine.

But cell phones do not replace investment in public services and infrastructure, said Aker.

She also expressed concerns about the privacy of data in the hands of private technology providers and governments. With the development of digital IDs in African countries like Kenya and South Africa, this could pave the way for further abuses, Aker said.

Uniti Networks is a for-profit company, paid for each customer who signs up for paid apps. Dar stated that he was not targeting vulnerable populations to sell them unnecessary services and said that Uniti only presents applications that align with his idea of ​​impact, focusing on health, education, finance and agriculture.

Dar said Uniti rejected lucrative approaches from many companies, including gambling companies. “Technology can be used for terrible things,” he said.

He acknowledged that Uniti tracks platform users to provide incentives, in the form of free data, and to provide feedback to app developers. He acknowledged that users’ financial and health data could be threatened by external attacks, but said Uniti had decentralized data storage in an attempt to reduce the risk.

Still, the potential to provide solutions may outweigh the risks, Aker said, noting two areas where technology can be transformative: education and insurance.

She said cell phones could help overcome illiteracy that still affects 773 million people worldwide, according to UNESCO. Increasing access to insurance, not yet widely used in parts of Africa, could provide protection to millions of people facing shocks on the front lines of climate change and conflict.

Back in the fields of Fianyo, his new smartphone attracted curiosity. “This is something I would like to be a part of,” said neighboring farmer Godsway Kwamigah.

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Thompson reported from Dakar, Senegal.

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