Mobile Participation : Access, Interaction and Practices [1 ed.] 9781443885690, 9781443880640

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Mobile Participation

Mobile Participation: Access, Interaction and Practices Edited by

Caroline Wamala-Larsson, Christelle Scharff and Johan Hellström

Mobile Participation: Access, Interaction and Practices Edited by Caroline Wamala-Larsson, Christelle Scharff and Johan Hellström This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Caroline Wamala-Larsson, Christelle Scharff, Johan Hellström and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8064-7 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8064-0

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Contributors ................................................................................................ ix Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Mobile Participation: An Introduction Caroline Wamala-Larsson, Johan Hellström and Christelle Scharff Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 17 Participatory Approaches to Development through Mobile Technologies: A Review of the M4D Biennial Conference Proceedings Caroline Wamala- Larsson and Jakob Svensson Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 55 Low Literacy, Social Inclusion and the Use of Mobile Phones Moustafa Zouinar and Mame Awa Ndiaye Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 73 Casting the Net Wider: Mobile Telephone Mediation and Participation in HIV/AIDS Initiatives in Ghana Perpetual Crentsil Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 99 The Politics of Mobile Media Inclusion in Argentina Sarah Wagner Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 125 Mobile Phones in Water Service Delivery: Turning Beneficiaries to Participants? Johan Hellström and Maria Jacobson Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 147 Privacy and M4D Initiatives Anna Crowe Index ........................................................................................................ 167

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to acknowledge that this book would not have been possible without the continuous support of the HumanIT Research Centre at Karlstad University in Sweden and its leadership in acknowledging Mobile Communication Technology for Development (M4D) as an area of research. The idea for this book originated from the longest running conference series solely dedicated to M4D that is organized by HumanIT Centre at Karlstad University, and collaborating partners. This conference was first hosted in 2008, and since then we have witnessed remarkable growth in the number of conferences, publications, as well as general discourses on mobile communications technologies and their contributing role to development. The chapters that appear in this book were presented at the 2014 conference and through different sectors such as livelihood, education, health as well as governance, lift up the concept of mobile participation highlighting the extent to which mobile technologies include the opinions and voices of the intended beneficiaries. We would like to thank the authors of this book for revising their contributions of M4D 2014 conference and expanding on their original work to produce deeper reflections and grounded research in mobile participation. We also extend gratitude to the initial reviewers of the papers submitted to the M4D 2014 conference. Special thanks are due to the Centre for Gender Research at Karlstad University for the intellectual and administrative support and most importantly funding the careful language editing provided by Marlene de Wilde. Caroline, Christelle and Johan .

CONTRIBUTORS

Editors Dr Caroline Wamala-Larsson, HumanIT Research Centre & Centre for Gender Research, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden, [email protected]. Dr Caroline Wamala-Larsson contributes to the practical and academic development of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) as the director of the HumanIT Research Centre, senior lecturer at the Centre for Gender Research at Karlstad University in Sweden and as a programme manager with the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER). Located in the Gender and Technology discipline, Wamala-Larsson’s research focuses on the use of ICT4D and gender as a point of analysis in ICT4D use. Her research acknowledges the mutual construction of gender and technology, contributing a deeper understanding of the cultural embeddedness of ICT. Her latest publications include “I Have to Give an “I Can” Attitude: Gender Patterns in Beeping Practices in Uganda,” published in SAGE Open, (2013) and “Theater, Gender, and Development: Merging Traditional and New Media to Address Communication Challenges in Uganda” that appeared in Signs 39(4), 2014: 866–874. Johan Hellström, Department of Computer and System Sciences (DSV), Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, [email protected]. Johan Hellström is a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer and System Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University in Sweden, where he focuses on ICT-facilitated participation and crowdsourcing in developing contexts. Hellström also runs a consultancy called Upgraid, which undertakes consultancies in the ICT4D field. He is the author of the report The Innovative Use of Mobile Applications in East Africa (2010), coauthor of the chapter “ICT4D Donor Agencies and Networks” available in the International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society, (2015), and the chapter "Crowdsourcing Development – from Funding to Reporting" that will appear in the Handbook of International Development.

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Dr Christelle Scharff, Department of Computer Science, Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Pace University, New York, USA, [email protected]. Dr Christelle Scharff is an associate professor of Computer Science at Pace University in New York City. Her research focuses on global software engineering and mobiles for development (M4D). In M4D, she focuses on design practices for mobile solutions that are relevant in resource-constrained settings and process models that suit the development of quality solutions in these contexts. She worked on the development of mobile learning solutions for primary schools in Senegal. She is the founder of MobileSenegal, a capacity-building initiative that trained more than 450 mobile developers in Senegal.

Authors Dr Perpetual Crentsil, Department of Social Research, Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, [email protected]. Dr Perpetual Crentsil is a postdoctoral researcher in Social and Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Social Research at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her research interests are HIV/AIDS in Ghana (Africa), reproductive health, African medical systems, and kinship. She has been a researcher within the Academy of Finland-funded project Mobile Technology, Gender and Development in Africa, India and Bangladesh (2010–2013), and publishes extensively on mobile telephony, gender and health in Africa. Anna Crowe, Privacy International, London, United Kingdom, [email protected]. Anna Crowe recently joined the Harvard Law School as a clinical advocacy fellow in the Human Rights Program. Previously she was a research officer at Privacy International, a London-based human rights organisation, where she focused on the right to privacy in the context of development and humanitarian aid. Prior to joining Privacy International, Crowe worked on transitional justice issues with the International Crisis Group in Colombia as a Henigson human rights fellow from Harvard Law School. She is a New Zealand-qualified lawyer and previously worked as a New Zealand government solicitor and a clerk to the Chief Justice of New Zealand. Crowe holds an LLM from Harvard Law School and bachelor’s degrees in Law, History and Political Studies from the University of Auckland.

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Maria Jacobson, UNDP Water Governance Facility (WGF), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Stockholm, Sweden, [email protected]. Maria Jacobson is a programme manager at the UNDP Water Governance Facility (WGF) at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). At SIWI, she manages the Water Integrity Programme and is responsible for anti-corruption work related to water, including capacity development. Prior to joining SIWI, Jacobson worked for the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme in Uganda. Jacobson holds a master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Göteborg University in Sweden. She is the co-author of the article “Addressing Corruption in Climate Change Water Adaptation” in Environmental Science and Biotechnology (2010), co-author of the report Promoting Transparency, Integrity and Accountability in the Water and Sanitation Sector in Uganda (2010), and co-author and editor of the UNDP/WIN publication User’s Guide on Assessing Water Governance (2013). Mame Awa Ndiaye, Centre de Resources Technologiques et Pédagogiques (CRTP), Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal, [email protected]. Mame Awa Ndiaye is a research assistant at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar in Senegal. She obtained a Master of Research in Sociology from the Université Gaston Berger of Saint Louis in Senegal (2010) and a Master of Professional Studies in Information and Communication from the Université Rennes 2 in France (2012). Her research interests are organization behaviours and sociology of use. Ndiaye carried out sociological studies on illiteracy in the usage of mobile phones in Senegal for Orange. Dr Jakob Svensson, Department of Informatics and Media, Faculty of Social Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, [email protected] Dr Jakob Svensson is an associate professor in Media and Communication Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden, where he directs the international MA programme in Digital Media and Society. His research focuses on two main areas: political participation on digital media platforms and mobile communication in developing regions. In the latter, Svensson has taken part in organizing three of the four Mobile Communication for Development conferences (M4D 2010, 2012 and 2014). He recently edited a volume for IGI Global on Promoting Social Change and Democracy through Information and Communication Technology with Professor

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Vikas Kumar from the Asia Pacific Institute in New Delhi, which will be released in 2015. Svensson is currently engaged in a research project involving empowerment and mobile phones among market women in Uganda with Dr Caroline Wamala-Larsson. Sarah Wagner, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Barcelona, Spain, [email protected]. Sarah Wagner is a PhD candidate in the Mobile Technologies and (G)local Challenges Research Group of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in Spain since 2012. Her thesis research analyses the position of Guaraní communities within the mobile telephony service structures in Argentina and Bolivia. She is developing a political economy approach to mobile telephony inclusion, bringing together analyses of mobile media industries, ICT public policies and local-level mobile appropriation. Dr Moustafa Zouinar, Sociology and Economics Department (SENSE), Orange Labs, Paris, France, [email protected]. Dr Moustafa Zouinar works as a senior researcher in the Sociology and Economics Department (SENSE) at Orange Labs in Paris. His research explores everyday practices and activities with technology, with a view to contribute to design in a variety of areas such as video mediated communication in the workplace and homes, mobile computing, mobile health and illiteracy. His most recent research has focused on the design of a mobile health application for epidemiological surveillance in Senegal within a European project (VOICES) and the analysis of illiteracy in the usage of mobile phones in Africa. Zouinar has authored several publications and coordinated a book on ergonomics of products and services.

CHAPTER ONE MOBILE PARTICIPATION: AN INTRODUCTION CAROLINE WAMALA-LARSSON, 1 JOHAN HELLSTRÖM 2 AND CHRISTELLE SCHARFF 3

Mobiles In and For Development Mobile technologies, especially basic mobile phones, have changed how people interact and communicate in a very short period of time. Mobile cellular subscriptions have increased exponentially in developing regions, which account for 78 per cent of the world’s population (ITU, 2014) in the last ten years. Individuals, governments, aid agencies, companies, startups, and NGOs hail the potential of these technologies, especially with regards to development as they facilitate innovative uses in a wide range of information, communication, and transactional processes, and there have been unprecedented results in sectors including health, education, governance, agriculture and finance. Mobile technologies and services are said to strengthen democratic processes, expose corruption, improve the transferring of money to remote areas, enhance education practices, improve health service delivery and aid in communicating natural disasters, thus, they have been recognised as having an overwhelming impact on human development (UNDP, 2012; Donner, 2008; Katz, 2008; Ling and Donner, 2009).

1 Department of Social & Psychological Studies, Karlstad University, Box 882, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden, [email protected] 2 DSV, Stockholm University, SE–10691 Stockholm, Sweden, [email protected] 3 Department of Computer Science, Seidenberg School of Computer, Science and Information Systems, Pace University, New York, USA, [email protected]

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The use of mobile technologies for development purposes has also garnered significant academic attention. Theoretical readings of the area contribute to the development of what is fast becoming a recognised research stream within the wider Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) field and have streamlined “e” services to acquiring the “m” preface (Heeks, 2009). Mobile communications for development (M4D) is interdisciplinary where social sciences and technical disciplines cohabitate, which is made possible through the use of mobile devices, services and applications, and has, through its mobile character, helped address a number of infrastructural challenges in some of the remotest areas in the global south. The mobile phone has been noted as meeting the needs of individuals, precisely, wherever they are, geographically, economically, culturally and socially. It has, more than any other new technology, gained currency as a technology that can contribute to addressing inequalities and enabling transformative change (Niang et al., 2014; Kumar and Svensson, 2012). This pervasiveness is what makes mobile phones and other mobile technologies appealing to development. The goal of M4D research is to understand the use of mobile technologies and related services, and how they directly or indirectly address socioeconomic challenges. As an area of study, interest in what the technologies subsumed under the mobile category can contribute to social progression and transformation has grown exponentially. In the last decade, research specifically dedicated to the development potential of mobile technologies has garnered significant attention (Niang et al., 2014; Petterson, 2008; Kumar and Svensson, 2012; Svensson and Wicander, 2010). There is a growing number of conference series and open access papers devoted to M4D research, including the M4D conference series initiated by Karlstad University in Sweden in collaboration with development partners and education institutions. The HumanIT Research Centre at Karlstad University is the driving force behind the M4D biennial conference series. The M4D conference has taken place four times: in Karlstad, Sweden in 2008; Kampala, Uganda in 2010; New Delhi, India in 2012; and Dakar, Senegal in 2014. The conference series not only identified a need for academics in the area to meet and confer, but also for practitioners to engage in dialogues across the academic-practitioner divide. Hence contributions to the M4D conference were from the beginning multi-perspective and interdisciplinary. The idea for this book stems from the contributions on mobile technologies for development from the fourth M4D conference that took

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place in Senegal in 2014 where eighty papers from thirty-eight different countries were submitted. Two keynotes, twenty-eight papers, three panels, three workshops and eleven posters were accepted, presented and included in the proceedings (Niang et al., 2014). The contributions included the use of mobile phones by HIV patients and illiterate people in Ghana and Senegal, respectively, the reasons for mobile users to engage in governance initiatives in water management in Uganda, the importance of data privacy in M4D research and practice, the barriers to the use of mobile money in Kenya, the disconnect between mobile application production and local social interests in Argentina, and extending computer programming on mobile devices in South Africa. The growth in use of mobile technologies has also given rise to a range of assumptions in development. Some of these are techno-deterministic in that mobile technologies are discussed as the answer to development (See, for example, Said Sife, Kiondo and Lyimo-Macha, 2010). Mobile technologies are also being linked to increased social participation in matters of improved health service delivery and livelihoods. The participatory character of mobile technologies in development has not received as much scholarly attention as participation has in mainstream development. In main stream development, participation has been dissected and scrutinised by a number of scholars who seek to understand its meaning and contribution to development. Before we delve into the discussion of participation through mobile technologies, we need to look at what it is about mobile technologies that makes them potential tools for development.

Mobiles, Participation and Development Participation is part of the development jargon suggesting that those at the receiving end of development have the possibility to partake in the processes that will benefit them. Mobile technology is being hailed as enhancing participation in development but what participation means, the form it takes and the purpose it fulfils has eluded clarification over time. Participation is often taken for granted in the M4D literature and used in its broadest sense. Practitioners and academics tend to draw hasty conclusions and equate mobile subscriptions and penetration data with real access, use, interaction and participation. A high number of distributed SIM-cards do not mean that more people are participating in political and non-political processes, issues that affect them and development at large. A deeper analysis and understanding of the concept of participation through mobile technology is needed.

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What is it exactly about mobile technologies that allows for participation and development? Jon Agar’s (2003; 2013) Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone directs us to the specifics of this question. Agar states that the ability to be connected and in touch with social networks is enabled and encouraged by the mobile phone’s status as a communication tool. Transmitting voice and visual and written data through the mobile phone alludes to this constant touch phenomenon. Recent developments have brought about a variety of additional services to mobile telephony, such as multimedia messaging, email, text messaging, video conferencing, paying a bill, taking a photograph, listening to the radio, watching television/movies and playing games, which have enhanced the mobile phone’s capabilities. Referred to as smart phones, these Internet-enabled devices allow people to be in constant touch because they can be carried around and used wherever they go. The appeal of mobile technologies for development processes is based on their capability to produce media content and the fact that they are portable. Hence the mobile aspect of mobile technologies refers not only to their physical portability but also to their status as mediums that carry, transfer, receive and store information. A specific example may help put this into perspective. A farmer in Uganda acquired knowledge of a specific brand of chickens being farmed in Zambia through her husband. He communicated to his wife through the mobile phone that it may be beneficial to try the said breed of chickens. The farmer acquired the same poultry, implemented the same farming methods and saw a surge in income, which led to progress in other areas of the farmer’s life such as improved access to health services and better schools for their children (Wamala, 2010). This micro example can be expanded to a social group or region. The collective use of mobile technology towards solving social problems and closing gaps can lead to development because information can be accessed, shared, stored and applied to make informed decisions. This very opportunity – of sharing, storing, accessing and applying information acquired through mobile technologies – is also the goal of participation in development. To partake in processes that will transform people’s lives requires access to information and being able to communicate introspections and miscomprehensions. Mobile technologies can enable this dialogue. Mobile infrastructures, such as mobile base stations, electricity and transmission networks, are crucial for the proper functioning of mobile devices. In a number of developing regions, the instability of these supportive technologies, or the fact that they are still being developed or

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built, does threaten the prospect of always being connected, of being in constant touch with the world. In this book we want to discuss and elaborate on the concept of participation through mobile technologies further. The core question that this book attempts to answer is: In what ways do mobile technologies enable, enhance, and perhaps even effect civic participation in everyday life? The aim of this book is to explore the notion of participation enabled through mobile technologies as it is a concept that is employed freely in M4D with little critical reflection. We selected contributions from the fourth M4D conference from different disciplines to show the richness of the perspective. Before exploring the notion of participation through mobile technologies, we labour on the advent of participation in development practice and discourse. We then steer the discussion towards the technology-based form of participation, a process this book labels as mobile participation.

Epistemologies of Participation in Development During the 1980s, participation was indoctrinated into development discourse and practice to remedy the ills facing the development industry, and, more importantly, the global south. Well into the 1990s, participation had been mainstreamed into development processes, and a number of source books on the doctrine of participation were in circulation (for example, the World Bank Participation Source Book, 1996). The World Bank defines participation as “a process through which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources that affect them” (Pateman, 2012). The process of participation is a political move, one that encourages power sharing between stakeholders and development initiators. It is this interaction and, in particular, the uneven distribution of power that has turned the concept of participatory development into a hollow orthodoxy. In 1969, Shelly Arnstein, an urban development specialist, used the metaphor of a ladder to illustrate citizen decision making and participation. The eight-step ladder gives a detailed typology of participation (See figure 1) and went on to become an important benchmark against which the level of engagement of citizenry in political processes was measured. It also aided a disaggregated analysis of the causal links between different degrees of participation and their outcome. The same ladder also informs policy and development practice and discourse, and aids in critiquing the design, implementation and practices of participation (Collins and Ison, 2009: 361).

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The ladder’s appeal is the simplicity with which it illustrates power and its movement within and among the rungs. The same ladder metaphor also yields a graded upward movement towards a citizenry acquiring power. Arnstein noted that “participation is a categorical term for power” (1969:216) and the idea behind this figuration is that the degree of engagement improves with each upward rung, challenging power and its institutions on its journey.

Figure 1: Eight rungs on a ladder of citizen participation (see Arnstein, 1969).

However, this figuration soon reveals its shortcomings when it is applied to the messiness of reality. Participation and its legacy are framed in terms of power (Collins and Ison, 2006), yet the “social power dimensions of participatory processes [can] potentially frustrate attempts to promote genuinely inclusive decision making processes” (Few et al., 2007:50). The ladder metaphor conceptualises participation as a power struggle between citizens, or the governed, and their duty bearers, or those in leadership positions. Yet one might ask whether citizen control is the ultimate and successful application of participation (Hayward et al., 2004). One might also ask if the linear relationship between non-participation and citizen control, as depicted by the ladder, requires a similar approach by

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policy addressing this imbalance. Criticisms abound, but the general tenet is that participation framed within the notion of power is limited particularly as the rungs in their orderly acclivity fail to encompass the evolving and diverse levels of commitment on the part of the citizenry. The ladder requires contextual and situational applications because wherever its typology is placed, it will confront and be confronted by different sets of standards. Power is, as Arnstein rightly notes, at the heart of participation, but reassigning power does not qualify the practice of participation. This volume provides empirical evidence and further analyses towards the limitations of participation in development. When mobile technologies are employed in the business of doing participation, the ladder metaphor becomes useful in not only exposing the restrictions but also categorising the degrees of participation. The middle rungs of the ladder, collectively labelled as token participation, point to limited participation. Well-known examples such as the use of text messaging to inform farmer groups about some agricultural activity are extremely popular. While informing target groups or beneficiaries can help address a special need, the following questions arise: Does informing citizenry constitute participation, or does collecting opinions from key groups in communities serve as a participatory approach, even when the end decision lies with those implementing development (Arnstein, 1969; Pateman, 1970)? Bishop and Davis maintain that “those contending understandings of participation make participation a political label rather than a settled practice” (2002:14). This means that as long as farmers are getting information on current crop and animal diseases, or an impending climate catastrophe, they have been informed and this is participation. Never mind that the information supplied fails to be proactive in its instructions on how to deal with or handle these occurrences. Reference to settled practice suggests that this is an on-going process rather than a one-off activity. In other words, participation is or should be enduring and must be mutable to events as they happen. Andrea Cornwall (2006) similarly suggests the situational approach to participation. She refers to participation as spatial, contextual and open to renewal. For example, the upper rungs in the ladder point towards partnership between the target groups and the planners as a move or practice towards delegated power. But is this ever the case? One sector through which mobile technologies is increasingly accommodated is the governance space. As suggested by the ladder metaphor, encouraging citizen participation through partnerships and delegated power can lead to more transparent and accountable leaders. For example, mobile

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technologies have been used towards more transparency and accountability in elections. However, Hellström and Karefelt (2012) provide empirical evidence to the contrary, drawing on the Uganda general elections of 2011 where a number of technical platforms such as SMS were used by citizens to report on and monitor the elections. Hellström and Karefelt found that the use of SMS was challenged by a number of structures. Cost was a major obstacle. Paying for sending text messages did not appeal to most users, especially as most partakers wondered if their participation would lead to any action. Another obstacle was fear. Many users harboured suspicions of being watched should they report any voting irregularities. In this sense, a number of organisations, government institutions included, established a partnership with voting citizens to report on any abnormalities with the view of ensuring that the elections would be free and fair (a popular slogan) and transparent. They believed that by delegating the power to hold the entire system to account to the voters themselves, voter participation would be realised. Some of the primary reasons this initiative did not achieve the desired outcome are in line with Cornwall’s analysis that, even though spaces can be created to effect participation, the same spaces can also be permeated by counter-participatory methods, essentially politicising and reducing participation to a mere buzzword (Cornwall, 2006; Cornwall and Brock, 2006). If citizens are afraid to partake in democracy, even when the opportunity has been offered to them, or structural hindrances such as communication costs interfere with the doing of mobile participation, then the ultimate rung of citizen control on Arnstein’s ladder remains elusive. To that end, degrees of citizen power are made more visible because even if power is given away, someone has to have it to give, which still points towards an uneven distribution of power. The farmer example illustrating token participation, and the election example extrapolating political participation through mobile technologies, can both be relegated to the bottom of the ladder. The two rungs at the bottom of the ladder are classified as non-participation. Earlier we stated that supportive technologies must be in place if mobiles for development are to have a transformative effect. Electricity, transmission and other signals for the most part segregate societies. Areas that have a constant supply of these technical services ensure Agar’s constant touch phenomenon (2003); areas that lack or have limited access to the same services are easy to manipulate when it comes to participation. On paper, institutions can argue that groups of people have been informed and provide evidence to support these claims, even though the recipients of the

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information are not in a position to engage in dialogue. Recipients may not have the call credit required, or they may be unable to charge their mobile device for several days because a storm destroyed the power lines and repairs are yet to be made. As suggested by Cornwall and Brock (2005), conceptualising participation as time and space-bound allows the application of this approach to be tailored to specific situations, inviting dynamic and meaningful commitment. Participation is the panacea for proper development and, as already mentioned, mobile technology is one means of implementing this properness. Yet there is “little regard for implementation realities” (Michener, 1998; 2105). Michener (1998) further suggests that participation and its complexities need to be understood from either “planner-centred” and/or “people-centred” typologies. Michener looks at the opposing views regarding participation from these two camps and finds contradictions. There tends to be a “paternalistic tone” emanating from the planners, even when they seek the opinions of the people. Pateman mentions that “it is precisely because participation serves many masters that it remains an essentially contested concept” (Pateman, 2010). That the mobile device is being hailed as enhancing participation in development is an aspect that this book problematises. With mobiles being added to the mix of participatory approaches to development, the resultant complexities need to be analysed and understood in terms of their contribution to development goals. Are mobile technologies the panacea to participatory development?

Structure of the Book Within mainstream development, participation, as an approach, carries different meanings. A closer look at the activities aimed at realising participation reveal these disparities. With mobile technologies informing development practices, participation has acquired a technological mobility and the main aim of this volume is to begin a discussion of this aspect. The contributions on participation selected in this book range from livelihood, health, commerce and governance. We have also chosen to include a critical overview of the M4D conference contributions that will serve as a background. Each chapter will look at the concept of participation through the lens of the sector under investigation, with the ultimate goal of elucidating a concept that we believe will allow for the development of theoretical discussions that are much needed for M4D and its growth.

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Chapter Two: The volume’s first contribution provides an overview of the M4D area, drawing on the longest-running conference series solely dedicated to M4D (2008–2014). The overview is situated within participatory theories – giving illustration to the sociotechnical, sociocultural, sociopolitical and socioeconomic structures that add to the complexity of participation aided by mobile technologies. Emphasis is put on the cultural embeddedness of mobile technologies and how this structural landscape precipitates participation. This chapter traces the advances in mobile technologies since the commencement of the conference series in 2008, suggesting that the variances in these technologies engender their own social divides, and the type of mobile technology being used can limit or increase participation. The authors draw on participatory theorists such as Waisbod, (2003) who understand development as participation, and communication as the mechanism that enables participation. Recurring sectors that have benefitted from the application of mobile technologies in development are identified as mHealth, mLivelihood, mGovernance and mLearning. The chapter analyses the specific activities to which mobile technologies contribute some form of progressiveness, and works towards conceptualising the notion of mobile participation, its features, its demands and its shortcomings as well as its flexibility. Chapter Three: In this chapter, the expansive growth of mobile telephony in Africa and its contribution to development initiatives are scrutinised, with a focus on mobile phone features and their participatory nature. Particular emphasis is given to low-literate segments of people in Senegal, the country under study. The authors identify degrees of lowliteracy within the group that also inform the varying usage patterns of the same mobile phone features. The aim of this chapter is to expose the limitations of user interfaces that, often, place inhibitive requirements, such as being able to read and write, on users. Illiterate users still want to partake in social activities through their mobile phones. The authors suggest that designing interfaces that accommodate low-literate groups of people are needed if socioeconomic development is to be achieved. Chapter Four: Health, as a sector, is benefitting from the employment of mobile technologies. This chapter looks at the use of mobile telephony in facilitating HIV and AIDS counselling and treatment in Ghana. Using ethnographic methods, this chapter looks at the specific ways the use of mobile phones simplifies the lives of HIV counsellors and their patients. Yet, despite the contributions identified, participation of HIV-positive

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community members in health information services through the mobile phone is inhibited by a number of social aspects. For example, sharing phones compromises the privacy of the patients. Even though the number of mobile phone subscriptions in Ghana has surpassed the country’s population, there are still groups of people who do not own mobile phones and only gain access to them through their relatives and friends. Mobile phone sharing has been hailed as increasing access; however, it raises privacy issues and may inhibit participation. This is important to consider, especially in regions that still stigmatise individuals living with HIV. This chapter calls for greater scrutiny of mHealth initiatives and their promise to enhance participation. Chapter Five: In this chapter, the participation of indigenous communities in mobile media services in Argentina is analysed. It illustrates the drive of Argentinian app developers to compete globally and shows how they focus on the global market rather than on the local one. The isolation of indigenous communities in the production of media content is discussed in the context of “standardised distribution platforms [Google Play, Apple App Store] that do not favour local markets and are positioned within a wider social structure that invisibilises and discriminates against indigenous peoples.” This chapter draws the conclusion that creating space for groups that are marginalised in the production of mobile services is imperative for the progression of M4D. Chapter Six: In this chapter, the discussion focuses on the water sector and how its governance or monitoring service delivery is benefitting from the use of mobile technologies. It underpins the prospects and the restrictions within which mobile technologies function as governing tools in the water sector. Three M4D water projects form the empirical basis for the evaluation, which concludes that through mobile technologies, service delivery is improved, water consumers’ participation is strengthened and, from the implementers’ perspective, costs associated with attending to service delivery challenges are reduced. On the flipside are the limitations within which mobile technologies function as monitoring tools in water service delivery. Developing or underdeveloped communication infrastructures and the cost of using mobile technologies challenge mobile water governance. Related to this is the “lack of responsiveness and lack of incentives to use the systems” that have been developed, some which can be blamed on the limited marketing of their availability. The conclusion to the chapter places the responsibility of creating transparency

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and accountability in the water governance sector on the users and the institutions providing the service. Chapter Seven: The final chapter of this volume points to a growing concern in technology-aided communication – that of privacy and the security of mobile technology users. Mobile technologies have proliferated in just about every social sector, and their use in promoting the delivery of essential services, while lauded, has opened up discourse on the accumulation of personal data. This chapter adapts the rights-based approach to development, placing the respect for privacy of the end users as a high priority in M4D initiatives. It illustrates privacy by considering the “standards and guidelines around privacy and development initiatives involving mobile telephony.” Using the example of mobile banking, this chapter exposes the “weaknesses in existing frameworks for protecting privacy” and suggests reinforcing the frameworks and creating new standards that place respect for privacy at the core of M4D. Common to all the chapters is the discussion on participation that draws on Carole Pateman’s (1970; 2012) analysis of the concept. The chapters draw from mainstream development where participation has undergone vigorous analyses and theorising (Pateman, 2012). Participation was already complex, defying methodological and theoretical lock-down, and then the integration of mobile technologies in the doing of participation in development transferred some of its characteristics, such as its ambiguity. At the same time, affixing mobile to participation opens up new avenues of research to the application of this approach in development. The chapters point to variations in the practice of participation and suggest that, even though participation is happening, its form and character need to be investigated in part to understand its contribution to social transformation.

M4D and Participation: Future Discourse and Practice The chapters of this book initiate evocative conversations on how mobile technologies can contribute to expanding mobile participation practices. They provide a foundation for mobile participation, a term that is broadly used but not well understood in the interdisciplinary area of M4D. They present recent work and different perspectives on mobile participation in areas ranging from literacy, health, media production and digital inclusion to water management and privacy. The interdisciplinary nature of M4D is well illustrated in this book through the diversity of the backgrounds of the

Mobile Participation: An Introduction

13

contributing authors in social sciences and the computing field. Mobile participation needs both a theoretical foundation and practical applications. Through the contributions we see how the field is evolving, but we also witness a number of constraints that are still limiting its impact. As Donner (2010) suggests, M4D is an area with a dual heritage – in a sense it is straining to converse across disciplines, much like the wider ICT4D field from which M4D emerged. This dual heritage has to do with users exercising the freedom to use their technologies any way they choose to (see also Kleine, 2013) and, at the same time, the potential to use these mobile technologies to address social gaps pushes for “technology-led interventions [which] are embedded in recursive, context specific relationships with user communities” (Donner, 2010:1). In a sense the chapters in this book, through the analysis of participation, illustrate this tension, which is reminiscent of the M4D research area. The M4D community is pushing for deeper introspection in both practice and academic inquiry (See Heeks, 2008; Donner, 2010). For more robust knowledge claims to be generated, multifaceted analysis is needed to broaden and develop the area. Future inquiry should focus on dialogue across disciplines to contribute to shaping the scientific view of M4D as well as its application towards social transformation. In conclusion, this book resonates with other studies that find that mobile technologies are evolving but it is not always the latest or the most sophisticated device that is most appropriate for participatory development. What the contributing chapters show is that simpler devices such as basic phones offer higher degrees of participation. This volume has begun the discussion around mobile participation in development but much work remains to be done in developing our understanding, methods and theories informing the concept.

References Agar, Jon. Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone. Icon Books, 2013. —. The Government Machine: A Revolutionary History of the Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Arnstein, Sherry R. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35, no. 4 (1969): 216–224. Bishop, Patrick, and Glyn Davis. “Mapping Public Participation in Policy Choices.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 61, no. 1 (2002): 14–29.

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Collins, Kevin, and Ray Ison. “Jumping off Arnstein's Ladder: Social Learning as a New Policy Paradigm for Climate Change Adaptation.” Environmental Policy and Governance 19, no. 6 (2009): 358–373. Cornwall, Andrea. “Historical Perspectives on Participation in Development.” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 44, no. 1 (2006): 62-83. Cornwall, Andrea, and Karen Brock. “What do Buzzwords do for Development Policy? A critical Look at ‘Participation’, ‘Empowerment’ and ‘Poverty Reduction’.” Third World Quarterly 26, no. 7 (2005): 1043–1060. Donner, Jonathan. “Framing M4D: The Utility of Continuity and the Dual Heritage of ‘Mobiles and Development’”. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, (2010): 44. Donner, Jonathan. “Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature.” The Information Society 24, no. 3 (2008): 140–159. Few, Roger, Katrina Brown, and Emma L. Tompkins. “Public Participation and Climate Change Adaptation: Avoiding the Illusion of Inclusion.” Climate Policy 7, no. 1 (2007): 46–59. Hayward, Chris, Lyn Simpson, and Leanne Wood. “Still Left Out in the Cold: Problematising Participatory Research and Development.” Sociologia Ruralis 44, no. 1 (2004): 95–108. Heeks, Richard. “The ICT4D 2.0 Manifesto: Where Next for ICTs and International Development?” University of Manchester. Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM). Development Informatics Group, 2009. —. “ICT4D 2.0: The Next Phase of Applying ICT for International Development.” Computer 41, no. 6 (2008): 26–33. Hellström, Johan, and Karefelt, Anna. “Mobile Participation? Crowdsourcing During the 2011 Uganda General Elections.” In Proceedings of M4D2012, edited by V. Kumar and J. Svensson, 3. Karlstad: Karlstad University Studies, 2012. ITU Statistics 2014. http://www.itu.int/ict/statistics Katz, James E. Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies. The MIT Press, 2008. Kleine, Dorothea. Technologies of Choice?: ICTs, Development, and the Capabilities Approach. MIT Press, 2013. Kumar, Vikas, and Svensson, Jakob (eds.). “Proceedings of M4D 2012 2829 February 2012 New Delhi, India.” Proceedings of M4D 28, no. 29, 2012.

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Ling, Rich, and Jonathan Donner. Mobile Communication. John Wiley and Sons, 2013. Michener, Victoria J. “The Participatory Approach: Contradiction and Cooption in Burkina Faso.” World Development 26, no. 12 (1998): 2105– 2118. Niang, Ibrahima, Scharff, Christelle, and Wamala, Caroline (eds.). “Proceedings of 4th International Conference on M4D Mobile Communication for Development: M4D 2014, General Tracks.” In International Conference on Mobile Communications for Development-M4D 2014. Karlstad University Studies, 2014. Pateman, Carole. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge University Press, 1970. —. “Participatory Democracy Revisited.” Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 01 (2012): 7–19. Pettersson, John-Sören (ed.) “Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on M4D Mobile Communication Technology for Development (M4D 2008, General Tracks).” 11–12 December 2008, Karlstad University, Sweden. Karlstad University Studies, 2008. Said Sife, Alfred, Kiondo, Elizabeth and Lyimo-Macha, Joyce G. “Contribution of Mobile Phones to Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction Inmorogoro Region, Tanzania.” EJISDC (2010) 42, 3, 1–15 Svensson, Jakob, and Wicander, Gudrun (eds.). “Proceedings of The 2nd International Conference on M4D Mobile Communication Technology for Development (M4D 2010).” 10–11 November 2010 Kampala, Uganda. Karlstad University Studies, 2010. Waisbord, Silvio. “State, Development, and Communication.” In International and Development Communication: a 21st-Century Perspective, edited by Bella Mody. Sage Publications, (2003): 147– 165 World Bank Source Book, 1996. Wamala, Caroline. Does IT Count? Complexities between Access to and Use of Information Technologies among Uganda's Farmers. Luleå tekniska universitet, 2010. Zambrano, Raúl, and Seward, Ruhiya. Kristine. “Mobile Technologies and Empowerment: Enhancing Human Development through Participation and Innovation.” UNDP, 2012

CHAPTER TWO PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES TO DEVELOPMENT THROUGH MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES: A REVIEW OF THE M4D BIENNIAL CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS CAROLINE WAMALA- LARSSON 1 AND JAKOB SVENSSON 2

The unprecedented growth of mobile communication technologies in the global south is being hailed as a remedy for development ills. Mobile technologies are also seen as augmenting participatory approaches to the development industry. In this chapter we evaluate in what ways and in what sectors mobile communication platforms are employed as development tools. In particular we focus on their promise in participation, a term increasingly conflated with development. We draw on the longestrunning conference series solely devoted to Mobile Communication Technologies for Development (M4D) in making our inquiry. The sample studied reveals that mobile technologies contribute to greater involvement in sectors such as health, livelihood, governance and education, and they are also said to bridge social divides such as the participation of illiterate people in society. Our approach draws on an understanding of participation as a power-sharing exercise, and analyses the role of mobile technologies in redistributing and reinforcing this structure within development. We note the ambiguity of participation as discussed in 1

Karlstad University, Department of Social & Psychological Studies - Box 882, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden, [email protected] 2 Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media, Box 513, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden, [email protected]

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mainstream development, and construct a discussion of mobile participation, its features, limitations and flexibility.

Introduction and Objectives The explosive growth of mobile technologies in the global south has had an extraordinary impact on the development industry and discussions on mobile technologies and the contribution to or impact on the practices and discourses that inform development are rife among academics and practitioners. In this chapter we evaluate in what ways and in what sectors mobile communication platforms are employed as development tools. In particular we focus on their promise for participation, a term increasingly conflated with development. In some of our earlier work, we studied the ways mobile technologies have been discussed as vehicles for development (Svensson and Wamala-Larsson, 2015). In this chapter we look at the intersection of mobile technology, participation and development. For some, development is fundamentally understood as participation, and communication within development projects often refers to the activities that aim to achieve participation (Waisbord 2003:159). If mobile technologies are considered to enhance participatory approaches to “the development enterprise” (Zambrano and Seward, 2012), what form does this participation take, and in what sectors is such participation taking place? To attend to these questions, the chapter draws upon the longestrunning conference series solely devoted to Mobile Communication Technologies for Development (M4D), initiated by the HumanIT Research Centre at Karlstad University, Sweden. The rapid improvement of mobile technology warrants regular reviews on its growing contribution to development. In particular advancing features and new hardware entering the market engender different opportunities as well as challenges. Donner’s (2008) overview, to our knowledge, was the first contribution to a broader understanding of M4D and its role in development. The first aim of this chapter is to provide an updated overview of areas in which mobile technologies are discussed as contributing to development based on M4D conference series contributions. Our second aim is to look at the specific ways mobile technology is enhancing, enabling or perhaps even limiting participatory exercises on the part of the intended beneficiaries. We therefore focus our discussion on the recipients of development measures (beneficiaries) as we seek to understand how mobile technologies encourage participation

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among users, and what kind of participation mobile technologies inspire. Through this analysis we suggest a concept of mobile participation. We begin this chapter with a background section on the rise of mobile communication in developing regions and what this means for development. Thereafter we give an exposition on what we mean by mobile technologies. This is followed by a short note on the concepts of development and participation and their intersection with regards to mobile communication. The chapter then delves into the methods employed in studying the sample that forms the empirical material under scrutiny. This is followed by an overview of participation through mobile technology, with reference to specific areas. We conclude the chapter with a discussion on mobile participation – its features, limitations and flexibility.

M4D Background At the end of 2014, there were 6.8 billion mobile cellular telephone subscriptions, and 7 billion people, in the world (ITU, 2014). Developing regions account for 78 per cent of mobile cellular subscriptions of the world’s total (ITU, 2014), and the remarkable growth of mobile phones in these regions has provided all strata of society with access to this technology. Mobile phones have now become a vital tool in reaching an overwhelming majority of people. Mobile service providers, governments and NGOs use mobile phones to reach previously excluded communities in a bid to make services more accessible (Traxler, 2008). However, the flexibility of technology often gives the impression, or the false hope, that you can do anything and reach anyone. In reality there are still social and technical challenges, a point we return to shortly. The fact that developing regions account for the majority of mobile subscriptions in the world is currently providing development actors with wider opportunities. This process has singled out mobile devices within the broader Information Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) field as the technology of choice in information-driven development (see discussions by Gurumurthy, 2010 and Sen, 2010). The mobile character of these devices contributes to their popularity, as they reach individuals that other technologies have only further marginalised (Zambrano and Seward, 2012). Stationary computers located in telecentre establishments, for example, require potential users to trek to the locations (Dralega, 2009). Televisions, likewise, are stationary devices that are not altogether ubiquitous in their spread either. This is problematic because there are social hindrances affecting the mobility of individuals to places

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such as public telecentres (see Dralega, 2009). Religious affiliations, gender, class and ethnicity/caste can serve as social markers according to which members of society are excluded from or given access to technology (Gurumurthy, 2010). Mobile technologies such as mobile phones, on the other hand, have brought communication and information to the remotest areas on our planet. 3 Their mobility/portability, as well as versatility in encompassing old and new media within one device, makes these devices quintessential within the broader ICT4D field. 4 The contribution mobile devices bring to development as well as the processes that inform their application have carved a specific M4D niche in development discourse. What exactly is meant by M4D is a discussion we have taken up elsewhere (Svensson and Wamala-Larsson, 2015). In the ensuing section, we examine mobile technologies and present the specific terminology used in this chapter.

M4D: A Note on Terminologies In the previous sections, references to mobile devices, mobile technologies, mobiles and mobile communication have been used interchangeably. We have also established that the discussion around these artefacts is within the realm of development. However, a number of technologies are assimilated in the mobile category and a discussion on what is meant by mobile devices, mobile technologies or mobile communication in development should help to clarify the main focus for this chapter. Basic-feature mobile phones or monochrome phones that provide audio and text data features are the most prevalent communication technologies in the developing world (Donner, 2007; Hellström, 2010). Unlike smartphones or Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) that require data/Internet access, the basic-feature phone is rudimentary in its demand for supportive communication infrastructure (Hellström, 2010). However, 3 We discuss the mobility of these technologies with caution. These devices require base stations, electricity; i.e., functioning networks to work. We can bring whatever artefact to any corner of the world but it might not work if batteries cannot be charged because there is no electricity, or that communication is not possible due to a non-existent network. 4 Mobile phones indiscriminately make other media available. The more advanced portable communication devices – smart phones – make a variety of media available through the mobile device but only a part of the total supply of media because it has to be mobile friendly. Television or radio has to be available online and adaptable to the mobile interface.

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21

the smartphone is changing the face of mobile communication. For the majority of the developing populations, their first contact with the World Wide Web, or Internet features, is through smartphones (See Donovan and Donner, 2010). In sub-Saharan Africa and developing regions in Asia, millions of users use Facebook Zero, a mobile app from the giant social networking company. They do not view this engagement as gaining access to or using the Internet,5 suggesting that for many who have grown up with mobile apps and touch screens, the use of a Facebook mobile app may not be seen as using an Internet-based programme. Smartphones and mobile Internet have yet to reach many in developing regions but are fast becoming part of everyday use for the global south community. Tablets, net books, notebooks and laptops are all part of the mobile technology classification. When talking about development, however, the spread of these devices is still limited to the urban elite, as communication infrastructure is more developed in cities than it is in rural locations. This however has not stopped the use of tablets in education programmes in urban schools in developing regions, nor has it hindered the development of applications tailored to the local needs of developing regions.6 We therefore note that there are different devices subsumed under mobiles for development. For the purposes of this chapter, we take into account all the above technologies and make general reference to mobile technology because, since 2008 when the M4D conference series under inquiry (which we will return to in the Method section) was launched, the technical advances of these devices have been exceptional, and have opened up a range of opportunities for development; and in particular the participatory approaches to this enterprise. For example, we note the growth of the mobile app industry in the developing regions (see Wagner, 2014, and in this volume). Local actors are addressing service delivery shortcomings with locally tailored mobile applications, and this has significant implications for the social progression of these communities. But in order to encompass this conglomeration of technologies incorporated in the M4D area, the general term ‘mobile technology’ in this chapter encompasses services/platforms that enable interaction, and only where specific mention of the technology in question contributes to the discussion and analysis will we make a distinction. As the reader will see 5

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-bigger-internet-205244316.html (accessed 11 February 2015). See also http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/19/africa/africa-mobile-internet/index.html (accessed 19 February 2015) 6 http://www.southafrica.info/about/education/paperless-education-14115.htm#.VOS Wqi4Yk84 (accessed 18 February, 2015).

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in the discussion section, the variances in mobile technologies have their own implications on the form participation in development takes. Hence our choice to employ a general term – mobile technology – is deliberate. Before introducing the reader to our methods and the sample that informs this chapter, we will untie some theoretical knots that inform the analysis.

Development, Participation and Mobile Technologies Development and participation are confusing concepts (Cornwall and Brock, 2005; Waisbord, 2003). The concept of development is notoriously tricky as it carries assumptions, structures and different theories with it (see Pietersee Nederveen, 2010). We have disentangled and discussed the concept of development (within M4D discussions) elsewhere and have in particular highlighted the concept as deterministic and economically biased (see Svensson and Wamala-Larsson, 2015). We base our overview on a field of development (M4D) in which contributors may have different understandings of what development per se entails. In general terms, however, the concept does signal some kind of change, that something (a country, a region, a practice) is developed, most often for the better. Indeed, to change something for the better is often the underlying rationale of development projects. The concept of participation also comes with a baggage of different definitions and approaches. It has been approached from a narrow (or minimalist/ elite; see Schumpeter, 1942) to a wide (or maximalist / popular; see Pateman, 1970; 2012) understanding within a range of different social sciences (for an overview within media studies, see Carpentier, 2011). There is a shift towards wider and more maximalist understandings of participation, which ultimately has to do with power, in particular the delegation of power to the citizens. Important here is Arnstein (1969) with her ladder of citizen participation ranging from participation as manipulation and therapy (considered non-participation) via informing, consultation and placation (labelled tokenism) to delegated power and citizen control (considered full participation as this entails citizen power). In more maximalist accounts then, only when decisionmaking power is delegated to the citizens (or intended beneficiaries) does real participation take place. Our aim here is not to account for all the different theorising and concepts of participation. To study this concept within the field of M4D, it is this power-delegating aspect we find particularly interesting when the development projects and practitioners set out to achieve change.

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23

Important for understanding the rise of participation lingua within the field of development projects, we argue, is the deliberative turn in social sciences in the 90s and around the turn of the millennium. As we move towards wider and more encompassing approaches of participation, the understanding of participation as inherently good and transformative (see Cornwall, 2003) has gained prevalence. This, we believe, was due to the rise of deliberative theories (see Fishkin, 1991; Dryzek, 2000) based on Habermas’ (1996) ideas of communicative action and communicative rationality, championing communication (deliberation or rational discussion) as the tool for organising society and democracy in a better and more inclusive way. As long as people participate in rational communication (deliberation) with each other, consensus would be reached, and better and more sustainable decisions would be made where all partners, for example in a development project, agree on the course of action. This approach has been criticised, not least by feminists and radical theorists (see Mouffe, 2005; Cornwall, 2003), asking whether such deliberations only hide power relations through manipulation or are merely consulting rather than actually delegating power to the people/ intended beneficiaries. Participation became a development standard in the 1980s when the range of ills in development were meant to be addressed through engaging with beneficiaries. Participation in development continues to be subject to academic inquiry and has been found to serve different masters, degenerating the term and its application into a mere development buzzword (Cornwall and Brock, 2005). With the unprecedented growth of mobile communication technologies in the global south, not only are mobile devices being hailed as a form of remedy for development ills, they are also seen as amplifying participatory approaches to the development industry. Technologies subsumed under the mobile category have the ability to encourage what Michener (1998) classifies as “people-centred” as opposed to “planner-centred” methods of participating in development. Since mobile devices can facilitate dialogue (communication/deliberation) between parties, their capability in enhancing participation is a growing development orthodoxy. An example of the above is the 2012 United Nations Development Programme publication with the title Mobile Technologies and Empowerment: Enhancing Human Development through Participation and Innovation. 7 Development reports peg participation as part of a transformative process where individuals benefitting from the interventions have the opportunity to contribute to the practices and 7

http://undpegov.org.

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processes guiding their own transformation. Mobile phones in particular are regarded as contributing to a participatory approach to development (Zambrano and Seward, 2012) because M4D “initiatives have created and deployed platforms that guide and enable distributed interactions that lead to better development outcomes” (Donner, 2010:6). A number of inferences suggest that mobile phones often increase/enhance participation in health, education livelihood and governance among marginalised or underserved communities (Zambrano and Seward, 2012). Marginalised and underserved communities constitute groups of people who do not partake in social programmes as much as their counterparts because they have, socially, culturally, economically or politically, not had or been given the opportunity to do so. Even if essential services (such as health, education, livelihood, clean water) are in place, gaining access to these enterprises is not guaranteed. For individual, communal and regional development to occur, equal access to social services is necessary (Sen, 1999). Inequalities regarding access to these services endure, and many are responsible for the poverty around the globe. Many of the efforts to fight poverty and encourage socioeconomic growth-development have pegged the notion of equal participation to these processes. Participation here means that both planners and target groups (beneficiaries) contribute equally to the processes aimed at addressing social inequalities (or what the development project may be focusing on). It is suggested that communication technologies, mobile phones in particular, have the ability to “make things more agreeable and more enabling” (Sen, 2010:2). However, the structure of participation and its contribution to development remains highly contested (Cornwall, 2003; Cornwall and Brock, 2005). We have already noted that participation as a method to promote development has been found wanting (Parfitt, 2004). Cornwall (2003) exposes the contention that conceptions of participation can wedge social divides even further. For example, there are village meetings where only the men speak due to the cultural norm that women are not allowed to speak in public. The women’s presence, since they are silent, does not constitute genuine participation. This would be consultation or even manipulation, according to Arnstein (1969). Cornwall (2003) also addresses the complexity of participation where, upon hearing the voices and the choices of the key groups benefitting from the development intervention, there may be difficulties reconciling these choices with the project’s overall intended goal. Cornwall uses the example of a project aimed at addressing the gender inequalities facing women in terms of economic choices as well as decision-making. In this case, the women benefitting from the programme voiced preferences that appeared to

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“reinforce their subordination” (Cornwall, 2003: 1331), which presented the programme officer with a dilemma. When asked what kind of help they wanted, the women’s choice of support for their economic trade did not necessarily redress gender order; rather, it reinforced it, and this troubled the programme officer. Full participation, according to Arnstein (1969), would entail the delegation of power to the women, not just consulting them and then ignoring their opinions. Cornwall (2003) goes on to argue that “[c]hoices cannot be simply argued away with reference to ‘false consciousness.’ Nor can arguing about restricted contexts be sustained for it breaks down once we examine women’s choices in other settings” (p. 1331). She continues Seemingly benign intervention may undermine the strategies of those for whom “actual stakes” in current arrangements may involve more than initially meets the outsiders’ eye. Inviting “the community” to design their own interventions runs the risk, however, of reinforcing stakes that maintain a status quo that the marginal have tactics to grapple with, but no possibility of realizing strategies for change because they lack the power and agency to do so. These dilemmas are most apparent in contexts where participatory approaches are used to enable “the community” to engage more directly in the development process.

While mobile technologies are hailed as enhancing participation in development processes, the challenges highlighted above can be exacerbated but also mollified by these same technologies. For example, health projects that rely on mobile technology to disseminate health information to the community need to be understood within a consumption perspective. Someone has to pay for the information circulating within the mobile channels, for the mobile service providers’ communication through mobile technologies is seen as a business enterprise. Hence the kind of participation a community member may be able to emulate through using the mobile technology will ultimately be either challenged or aided by their economic situation. This brings us to the earlier point of departure – that communication enables participation in development (Waisbord, 2003). Communication practices mediated by mobile technologies are not neutral, nor do they function in a vacuum. They are ordered by the social systems at play, including political, cultural, religious and economic structures. Pateman (1970; 2012) talks about pseudo participation, what Arnstein (1969) labels token participation, which implies a participatory process without any real substance. If there is no power delegated to the citizens (here beneficiaries), then there is no participation. Mobile participation in light of the power structures (for instance, cultural and political) in which

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it takes place can nosedive to pseudo participation if political interference, for example, keeps key groups from engaging meaningfully through this medium. If we are to define mobile participation, in line with Pateman, Arnstein and more maximalist understandings of participation, we see mobile participation as a communication practice/process mediated by mobile technology, where the planners as well the beneficiaries take part in the “processes of formulation, passage and implementation” (Stoker, 1997), hence allowing for power to be delegated to the intended beneficiaries of the development project. The question is whether this is the case today.

Methods and Material Our inquiry into participation through mobile technologies takes us to a conference series solely dedicated to convening academics and practitioners working in the area of mobile communications for development. The M4D conference series, organised by Karlstad University in Sweden in collaboration with hosting institutions, is a biennial event that began in 2008. This event recognises the growing application of mobile technologies in development and has since its inception encouraged dialogue between academics and practitioners engaged in this area. Since 2008, more conferences dedicated to M4D have taken place and more publications have been published (see, for example, Donner 2007, 2008; Hellström, 2010; Katz, 2008; Ling and Donner, 2009). The M4D conference is the longest-running conference focusing on mobile communication in so-called developing regions. We therefore look at the proceedings from 2008 up to 2014, and ask how mobiles are contributing to development according to conference contributors, and what type of participation takes place when mobile technology is used. We find that advances in the type of technologies being developed have a bearing on development processes that are at once inclusionary and exclusionary. The sample studied reveals that mobile technologies contribute to greater involvement with sectors such as health, livelihood, governance and education, and they are also said to bridge social divides such as between literate and illiterate people in society. Since 2010, we the authors have contributed to the conference series as conference chairs or organising committee members and/or reviewers. M4D conferences were held in Karlstad, Sweden in 2008, in Kampala, Uganda in 2010, in New Delhi, India in 2012 and in Dakar, Senegal in 2014. The conference has since the beginning included the practitioner perspective primarily because M4D is a relatively young area and dialogue

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between the academic and practitioner camps can only serve to enlarge it. The four conference proceedings were reviewed and a total of 141 accepted papers were subjected to further analysis (see table below). We particularly focused on what areas of development are considered and what can be said about the understanding of participation in these contributions. Our review excludes keynote presentations, posters and demos, workshops and panels. Even though the proceedings contain abstracts or short summaries of these types of contributions, their acceptance and review process differ significantly in relation to accepted paper presentations, and the material presented in the conference volumes is therefore limited with regard to our agenda here. From the 141 contributions, the following numbers of papers were accepted with respect to each year (See table 1): 2008 – 17 2010 – 34 2012 – 62 2014 – 28 After reading the abstracts, and taking note of the keywords, we identified four major themes that continued to resonate at each conference. A total of 85 papers focusing on health, learning, livelihood and governance/democracy constitute the sample analysed in this chapter. The acceptance rates at these conferences might be interesting to the reader. Based on the 2014 experience, a total of 88 submissions were recorded for the conference. These include three workshops, three panels, and 11 demo and poster presentations. This brings the total number of paper submissions to 71, out of which 28 were accepted, equalling a 39.4 per cent acceptance rate of submitted papers, a percentage that resonates with previous years. Before subjecting the final 85 papers to a close reading, a note on what the remaining papers discuss is imperative.

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Table 1 Analysis of M4D Submissions for the Years 2008 – 2014 Year

Accepted papers per year (total)

Health

Livelihood

Governance

Learning

2008 (Karlstad, Sweden)

17

4

2

1

-

2010 (Kampala, Uganda)

34

7

8

4

3

2012 (New Delhi, India)

62

13

11

8

4

2014 (Dakar, Senegal)

28

9

3

6

2

Total

141

33

24

19

9

Total number of papers in the sample

85

The Remaining 56 In 2008, out of the 17 papers, four focus on health, and three others on governance and livelihood. The remaining 10 cover the summarised topics below. x Recycling obsolete or malfunctioning phone models (Lesack, 2008) x Bridging the digital divide through the mobile phone (Nielsen, 2008; Klungsøyr et al.; 2008, Boyera and Hoschka; 2008, Iluyem, 2008) x Analyses of mobile telephony growth (Mtenzi et al., 2008; Mpogole, Usanga and Tedre, 2008)

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29

Also from the 2008 conference we find a number of critical reviews and opinion pieces in the M4D area (see Traxler, 2008; Donner et al., 2008; Vincent and Freeland, 2008; Karunanayake et al., 2008; Karan and Cheng Hoon Khoo, 2008). We refer to these contributions as we forge an understanding of what mobile participation means. In 2010, 34 papers were accepted; the sample we work with in this chapter includes 22 papers. Included in our analysis is a presentation by Duncombe (2010), which assesses “mobiles for development research” and looks at the quality as well as its impact on the growth of the field. In addition, Dearden et al. (2010) argue that technical M4D research can only contribute to development if combined with that of other actors, such as the private sector, development organisations, etc. The remaining papers can be grouped as follows in terms of content: x Penetration, proliferation and impact of mobile telephony in developing regions (Fernández-Ardèvol, 2010; Abazi and Caushi, 2010; D’Elia, 2010; Frias-Martinez et al., 2010) x Incorporating missing language scripts in mobile texting practices (Workneh et al., 2010) x Explorative studies into the information needs of beneficiaries, a look at existing data (Ndiwalana et al., 2010; Ndiwalana, Morawczynski and Popov, 2010; White, 2010; Donovan and Donner, 2010) The highest number of practitioner contributions was recorded in 2012. As the conference was hosted in New Delhi, conversations opened up with development practitioners and technical developers working with mobiles for development purposes in India. Unlike the previous conferences, the parallel sessions were organised along thematic areas: x mHealth, mAgriculture, mEmpowerment – Thirty-one paper presentations described development programmes and other studies on the use of mobile phones towards enhancing social progression. The topic of mEmpowerment discusses the empowering potential of mobile phones for marginalised communities, with a focus on women (Dravid and Klimes, 2012; Shekha Lal Das and Saxena, 2012). Additional topics include the contribution to sustainable outcomes through mobile interventions (Prasad, 2012). It is also within this theme that we encountered two of the governance contributions recorded among the eight in the table found in the Methods section.

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x mLearning and mGovernance – This theme has five papers, with one contribution developing an Access-technology Agnostic Conceptual Model in assessing access and delivery of digital content through mobile technologies (Makitla et al., 2012). The remaining four papers describe the use of mobile phones in the fight against corruption, their role in social accountability (also included in our count of governance papers) and mobiles as the technologies to connect the next billion in the world. x mOpportunities and Business Models – Eleven technical papers on the application of mobile phones in development across different sectors were part of this category. x mMedia – Papers that offered a critical evaluation of the growth in mobile use in governance. Even though these evaluations do not labour on theoretical discussions, they are peppered with theoretical analyses such as the growth of mobile phones leading to new regional discourses, specifically noting the sociology of mobile technologies in Ivory Coast (Kamga, 2012). Additionally, Poveda and Svensson (2012) analyse the field from media and communication and sociology perspectives, acknowledging that mobile growth and its impact need to be understood within the realm of capitalism. x Innovative Management with Mobile Technologies – Four papers that point to the potential of mobiles as effective tools in communicating and managing disaster. x Technical Issues in Mobile Proliferation- – Four technical discussions that take up issues such as cloud computing for mobiles and a mobile app developed for purposes of monetarily calculating the amount of energy expended and saved in terms of our environment. In 2014 we summarise the remaining eight papers out of the total of 28 (see table 1): x Localised and contextual use of mobile phones (Irongo, 2014; Wagner, 2014; Fernández-Ardèvol, 2014; Gebregziabher and Krauss, 2010) x Privacy and security discussions in M4D (Crowe, 2014) x Developing and tailoring mobile technologies to local needs (Kydd and Prieo, 2014)

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x Mobile phones and the digital divide (Sossi Alaoui and Machrafi, 2014; Hérard and Richomme, 2014; Bhavsar and Grijalva, 2014).

Overview of the Sample In this section we examine the ways mobile technologies enable participatory processes within different service sectors.

mHealth Health as a sector has benefitted overwhelmingly from the popularity of mobile technologies, as evidenced by our sample, which records 33 paper presentations. Mobile technologies enhance, improve, regulate and sustain health care outcomes. Mobile phones have been discussed as supporting health workers in their provision and support of home-based care (Treatman and Lesh, 2012; Crenstil, 2014; Mohammed et al., 2014) for HIV-positive groups (Mangilima et al., 2010; Kydd and Prieo, 2014) as well as strengthening referrals between health centres and workers, particularly for AIDS patients (Kuntiya and Mavuduse, 2008; Kuntiya, 2010; Littman-Quinn et al., 2012). Mobile phones also enable remote patient monitoring and counselling (Haque et al., 2012; Chaudhury et al., 2012; Garai, 2012), recording patient treatment and attendance at health centres (Batra et al., 2012), expanding access to family planning (Jha et al., 2012), and registering births (Boutet-Dieye, 2014). In addition, Interactive Voice Response systems (IVR) are being championed as costeffective infrastructure and literacy-friendly communication channels through which to deliver healthcare information (Razzaq and Sayed, 2008), while text messages have been identified as useful in underserved areas (Ashraf et al., 2010), contributing to the education of many citizens on HIV/AIDS testing and counselling services (Hoefman and Apunyu, 2010; Hoefman et al., 2012) as well as communicating other health-related topics such as obesity, sexual violence and substance abuse (de Jager and Van Belle, 2014). At the same time, Short Messaging Services (SMS) are noted as facilitating information exchange and health data collection for communicable diseases (Atnafu, Workneh and Getachew, 2010; Diakité et al., 2014, Klungsøyr et al., 2008). mHealth solutions include the transfer of electronic information through wireless features such as Bluetooth, WiFi, and WiMAX enabled on smartphones, PDAs and Tablets (Lluyemi, 2008). There are also discussions on the role of GSMA in development, and through the development fund for this conglomerate, the aim is to

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“improve access to appropriate, necessary and quality health services in developing markets” (D’Elia, 2010:304). PDAs are similarly being evaluated for their role in “enhancing clinical practices and patient care through access to relevant health care information” (Petrucka et al., 2010). The examples above all suggest a unidirectional flow of information and services, where the caregivers are the information bearers who distribute this product to key groups. The mobile phone as a case in point facilitates dialogue between community health workers and medical practitioners located in distant parts of the regions under discussion. This process is seen as equipping community health workers with knowledge and appropriate resources for serving the groups in need. A number of the programmes described provide critical evaluations of the interventions. They suggest that contextual knowledge and people’s use of technology may hinder the mHealth initiatives. Specifically, Irongo (2014) points to the importance of employing local languages in the use of text messages when informing rural women, for example. Petrucka et al. (2010) and Crentsil (2014) point to some of the myths and folklore that serve as deterrents to engaging with health information through mobile phone use. In Ghana mobile phone ownership among young women is equated with loose morals, implying that young women gain access to mobile phones through sexual liaisons with much older financially secure men (Crentsil, 2014). Assumptions like this may stigmatise mobile phone ownership and use (Crentsil, 2014). Other challenges are associated with sustaining and maintaining mHealth projects, many of which are donor funded (Kuntiya and Mavuduse, 2008). In many cases their use of mobile technologies in health projects is hindered or at best limited by communication costs. When patients cannot afford to call their HIV counsellor, the intentional missed-calling technique places the cost of the call on the counsellor (Crentsil, 2014; see also Crentsil in this volume). The participation of key groups in need of health services, such as HIV-positive groups, cancer patients, and those with tuberculosis, appears to be what Arnstein (1969) would call token participation. The intended beneficiaries are not invited to shape the practices and services. The beneficiaries should be able to influence how these practices are shaped; yet we cannot dispel the importance of being informed. After a number of SMS initiatives communicated nutrition information for new mothers and pregnant women, infant and mother morbidity rates decreased in India (Batra, et al. 2012). Still, while marketing mobiles as enhancing, improving, enabling, facilitating and sustaining health initiatives seems to suggest a participatory

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nature of these technologies, the examples illustrated here suggest only a partial participation (Pateman, 1970; 2012).

mLivelihood Under the rubric of livelihood, we discuss socioeconomic practices performed through mobile technologies. These include agricultural practices, banking, and other applications of mobile technologies aimed at improving people’s livelihood. Mobile phones and, of late, smartphones have been used to inform and manage agricultural practices. Some are well-known initiatives such as iCow in Kenya, an information service where farmers dial a short code in order to receive information that helps them add value to their farm products. 8 Other ways in which mobile apps and SMS features inform agriculture are through the provision of market prices (Kashem, 2010), weather updates, and information on treating, containing and managing crop and animal diseases. A well-known and widely cited study by Jensen (2007) describes the reliance of Kerala fishermen on mobile phones for negotiating fish prices as a process that improves their welfare (See also Djane and Ling, 2014; Islam and Alawadhi, 2008; Matotay and Furuholt, 2010; Balusubramania et al., 2010; Rao and Sonar, 2012). The M4D conference proceedings note the following ways in which mobile technologies can improve livelihoods. Music is an integral part of daily life in low-income urban areas such as the slum areas of Nairobi, Kenya. Nokia set out to explore how the making and distribution of music could be used to further economic development. The general idea involved recording and sharing music through mobile technologies, looking at music as a source of livelihood (Impio et al., 2008). Use of mobile phones for monetary transfers has also shown promise in that it promotes social protection. In Lesotho, women’s farming groups are financially supported in their endeavours with money transfers going through mobile phones. In a similar vein, commercial wireless transactions are gaining ground through mobile commerce initiatives (Vincent and Freeland, 2008; Vincent and Cull, 2010). Applications that support commercial/financial transactions are seen as increasing security and confidentiality for the traders (Karunanayake et al., 2008; Lyytinen, 2010; Matovu and Rai, 2010; Ndiwalana, Morawczynski and Popov, 2010; Nassaka and Rai, 2010). 8

http://icow.co.ke/ Accessed 19 February 2015

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Muluwa and Ndati (2014) discuss the barriers to the uptake and use of mobile banking services, such as phone sharing, that do not endanger privacy (see Crentsil, 2014 and Crowe, 2014). Phone sharing increases access to technology as well as to the information it provides so there are clear benefits to this process but the challenges related to privacy and security cannot be ignored. For example, in the case of monetary transactions, users would obviously like their socioeconomic activities to remain private. Similarly, while mobile technology does enable processes of information-sharing in livelihood practices, users, as seen in Crandall (2012), prefer voice-activated technology. Multimedia services (MMS) are similarly preferred when it comes to informing farmers about different activities such as horticulture, aquaculture and veterinary services in India (Shankaraiah and Swamy, 2012). Lastly, Kashem (2010; 2012), for example, notes variations in the use of mobile phones for establishing market prices in Bangladesh. In many of these studies, community input into how they would like mobile technology to inform their livelihood is important. A mobile phone offers a range of features, some of which can be discriminatory in their delivery. For illiterate farmers, reading an SMS can be a challenge and IVR systems might be a better fit. What some of these studies illustrate is that the planners have instituted mobile technology services in domains of livelihood, and upon evaluation find that there are other features users would have preferred (see Crandall, 2012). Merely using existing services such as information services does not constitute full participation. Hence if development involves linear forms of communication where messages are disseminated to key groups, communication is one-directional and lacks the desired trait of dynamism. If farmers are merely receiving information updates on their mobile phones; this cannot be characterised as full participation. Projects that simply inform their intended target groups fulfil their goals and are easy to measure. If, however, participation is meant to be instrumental towards transformation, then conceptualising it as a means to an end is one of the key reasons development projects continue to face sustainability challenges. However, shaping practices yourself with the mobile phone, setting up systems, and collaborating equally with others to find out where to get most pay for your produce are more on par with maximalist understandings of participation. Similarly, using mobile banking solutions in innovative ways to further security and confidentiality in transactions to suit the needs of the users entails some kind of power distribution, even though these users were not (yet) invited to be part of designing the m-

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banking service. On the other hand, to use mobile phones to make money from the poor, using their sharing practices to inform a business model of music, for example, would be manipulation, according to Arnstein.

mLearning This is a topic that cuts across sectors. Farmers, health workers (Otieno, 2010) and political groups can employ mobile technology for purposes of furthering their knowledge within their respective professions. As noted during the 2008 conference, “mobile devices can take learning to people, communities and countries previously remote, geographically, social or economically” (Traxler, 2008:93). This section however focuses on the use of mobile technology within the education sector. How do mobiles enhance education for learners, and how do they aid educators? This is a topic that was hardly discussed in 2008, yet from 2012 it acquired its own focus as devices in the mobile category became more sophisticated, both in terms of hardware such as bigger screens and in software support such as the Internet. Prior to 2012 mobile phones in particular were seen as a means of improving university life for students (Scharff, Preira and Tamgno, 2010); for example, sending out information about on-campus dining routines so students could avoid long queues, establishing an SMSbased service that enabled the booking of hostels/dormitories, providing access to weekly teaching schedules, and the list goes on (ibid). Others note that mobile technology can be leveraged to meet educational needs (Annan, Traxler and Ofori-Dwumfou, 2014); for example, where devices with Internet offer complementary teaching in the form of distance education. Additionally they are seen as simplifying administrative work and dialogue between students and lecturers on teaching schedules. Other innovative approaches to learning include teaching computer programming using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets (Mbogo, Blake and Suleman, 2014). Mbogo, Blake and Suleman (2014) acknowledge the complexity of programming on a mobile device and in many cases the visual displays can be inhibiting but they suggest providing support or complements to classroom learning by scaffolding the construction of the subject of programming to fit mobile devices. The flexibility of mobile technology is characterised by small(er) smartphone screens. However, pop-up keyboards on a touch screen that tend to cover a significant section of the screen can be a hindrance to the programming process. Similarly, heavy reliance on highend technologies that are not affordable and available to all, as well as

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unreliable communication infrastructures, present their own anxieties when it comes to using these technologies for learning. Using mobile technology to merely inform users and draw attention to class schedules and other student life issues may be participatory if the users influence what information reaches them and when, but only when some control over the information flow is delegated to the users can this be considered participation. Similarly, designs for educational purposes should always include provision for the end users in the process to participate, and not only for consultation but also for decision-making, as illustrated by Scharff, Preira and Tamgno (2010).

mGovernance Poverty is often preceded by the uneven distribution of resources that is inherent in corruption. Mobile technologies are being used to enhance freedom of speech (Paik, 2010), hold leaders accountable (Debar, Niang and Serwaah-Panin, 2010), improve service delivery (Hellström and Jacobson, 2014; Thinyane and Coulson, 2012), monitor elections through citizen reporters (Hellström and Karefelt, 2012) and expose corruption (Talkudar, 2012). One cannot discuss mobile technologies in governance without mentioning the well-documented Arab Spring. Twitter and other social media tools were found to have played a central role in the uprisings (Howard et al., 2011), with a staggering 3 million tweets recorded during the revolts. During the 2012 M4D, concrete examples were provided of how mobile phones with simple features such as SMS systems were improving the provision of justice in Tanzania, exposing poor service delivery in northern Uganda and contributing to voting systems in Kenya. The flexibility of mobile technologies in accommodating other media makes them conducive for democratic processes. The simple cameras on many phones, for example, provide visual evidence of poor service delivery or corrupt officials asking for bribes (see, for example, Thinyane and Coulson, 2012). Similar features such as voice recording can capture audio evidence. The same technologies are also being used to enhance the provision of government services, especially in voting registries (Eilu, Baguma and Pettersson, 2014). As a sub-segment to e-governance, mobile forms of governance are becoming common place, where e-services are being tailored to mobile platforms so as to extend citizens’ reach. When it comes to governance, we have seen many innovative ways users themselves put technologies to use, often in ways not initially intended by designers and especially not by governments. For example, there is the Mzalendo project in Kenya that keeps an eye on whether

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members of parliament (MPs) follow through with their election promises. This service allows Kenyans to rate the MPs and certainly keeps the MPs in check, and it is available on mobile platforms. In this way mobile technology becomes participatory; however, the same technology can be used against the people through surveillance measures. For example, the Arab Spring, and especially the role social media played in the revolts, made a number of governments nervous, and they responded by drafting communication bills that allow the monitoring and censoring of any form of communication deemed to be a threat to the public. This has been augmented with SIM card registration, which furthers the monitoring processes. It is becoming impossible to use a mobile device in many subSaharan countries without this formal registration. These measures, dressed as nationwide strategies to protect and secure people’s freedoms, are bound to limit or degenerate mobile participation to what Arnistein (1969) referred to as token participation, which means informing the people without any feedback or interaction from them. Privacy and security are issues that M4D initiatives have taken lightly (See Crowe, 2014 and this volume), and the fear of being observed may deter users from genuine or full participation (Pateman, 2012). Additionally, the amount of data mobile participation accumulates across all sectors is staggering (Boullé et al., 2014) and much of it is being used to tailor commercial advertisements to specific user preferences. This data can indeed be used for development purposes (Boullé et al., 2014), but users who understand the implications of mobile participation may self-censor and limit their level of commitment, especially when it comes to political participation.

A Look at Cross-cutting Areas in M4D In the Methods section, we discussed 56 additional papers that did not fit in with the four themes we identified in the conference series. We will examine some of these discussions here to extrapolate their cross-cutting features with reference to governance, learning, livelihood and health. That the mobility of information and communication has proliferated in our everyday lives is well understood but these technologies also place demands on users, such as the requirement for some literacy and numeracy skills. We see evidence of mobile interfaces being designed to cater to sectors of society that are impeded by their inability to read, write and count (White, 2010; see also Ndiaye and Zouinar, 2014). Related to this are attempts to remedy the inability of many of these mobile platforms to support language scripts that fall outside the dominating family of Latin-

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based languages such as English. There are efforts to adapt smartphones to Aramaic in Ethiopia (Workneh, 2010), for example. Some evaluative pieces look at the “anatomy” of mobile handsets, questioning what characteristics mobile devices should possess in order to contribute to or successfully steer participation and its partner, development (FriasMartinez, Virseda, Frias-Martinez, 2010; Bationo-Tillon, Sangaré and Ledunois, 2014). To include end users in the design process is indeed a step in a more participatory direction. The digital divide in very broad strokes refers to the information gaps between and within regions, putting those with access to information on the better side of the divide. Mobile phones are being proposed as avenues to bridging regional and social divides. Information services within education, governance and business can have a lasting impact on the user (Boyera and Hoschka, 2008) and to that end, mobile phones are seen as empowering underserved, marginalised and isolated communities. Access to technology can provide these groups with information that opens up their understanding of the world. Illiterate persons (White, 2010; Ndiaye and Zouinar, 2014), women (Dravid and Klimes, 2012) and isolated groups (Wagner, 2014; Kydd and Prieo, 2014; Alaoui and Machrafi, 2014) can expand their opportunities through access to mobile phones, but even as mobile phones, in particular, continue to invade all aspects of life, some have questioned whether their growth can be paralleled to social progression (Mtenzi Chachage and Ngumbuke, 2008; see also Mpogole, Usanga and Tedre, 2008). And the conclusion is that the rising number of mobile phone users cannot be equated to improved lifestyles. This is because services provided through these technologies must engage in explorative studies such as needs assessments to understand what applications are most needed (Ndiwalana, Scott, Batchelor and Sumner, 2010); alternatively studying the trends can also help inform development processes (Fernández-Ardévol, 2010). However the general consensus is that low-end technologies that cater to illiterate groups, cultural identities, and cultural diversity and take affordability into consideration can have a greater social impact (De Boer and Chevrollier, 2010) and contribute to the participation of users.

Discussion and Conclusion Participation within the field of development often underlines communication as the activity to achieve development goals (Waisbord, 2003:159). However, if power is not delegated to the intended beneficiaries within development projects, we may question what kind of participation, and

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hence also what kind of development, is promoted. M4D may even compromise development if, as suggested by Stoker (1997), the beneficiaries are left out of the formulation processes. More studies investigating what type of mobile devices are in the hands of the target groups, which communication features are preferred and how it would be possible to include end users in the design process would go a long way towards engendering mobile participation. Currently this is far from the case, as highlighted above. In the areas in which mobile technology is discussed as contributing to participation (health, livelihood, learning and governance), there is not much evidence that power really is delegated to the participating beneficiaries. This chapter opted to lump together various technologies within the mobile rubric and use the term ‘mobile technology’ as opposed to singling out one specific technology within the group. This is essential for the understanding of mobile participation because the range of technologies within this group challenge the very ontology of participatory development. Individuals with monochrome phones do not have access to what smartphones or tablets can offer users. This variance in mobile technologies already reveals the complexity of mobile participation because the type of technology one has access to espouses different participatory exercises. If we consider mLearning as an emerging sector, and specifically the programming example noted by Mbogo, Blake and Suleman (2014), and if indeed future learning will involve more and more mobile technologies, then young people with access to high-end mobile technologies are in a better position to develop programming skills than young people with low-end mobile technologies. On the coattails of the variance in technologies is the suggestion that M4D initiatives need to be scalable. Concentrating on key groups as a laboratory experiment of what the development project can likely achieve makes great sense. However, strategies to scale these interventions (Farmer and Boots, 2014) must be in place. Part of the challenge of scaling is an expectation that intended beneficiaries will use their mobile devices in tandem with the set development goals. Studies on mobile use have revealed a kaleidoscope of uses among similar groups of people, suggesting that sociocultural influences cannot be ignored in the meaningmaking of technologies among key groups. If owning a mobile phone creates a stigma for a young woman (see Crentsil, 2014, and this volume), structural outlines have to be thought through if M4D is to make a difference. The wider social contexts are important, for sure, but individual agency in the use of mobile technologies is similarly influenced by structural ideas about the self. A young person discovering his or her

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identity, be it in terms of gender, class or age, can become embroiled in the associated relationship with mobile technologies (see, for example, Dunbar-Hester, 2008, 2010). Hence in mLearning situations where the quality of the device dictates a student’s position, differences in devices can serve as a drawback to participation. With perpetual innovations in mobile technology, the pressure to keep up with the in-crowd carries its own social challenges. Not having the latest gadget creates its own brand of anxiety for impressionable youth, for whom social value (Elliot and Urry, 2010) is often reliant on technological ownership (see Katz and Sugiyama, 2006), and this has a direct bearing on participation. Mobile participation continues to take up space and can benefit from dialogue between sociotechnical theorists and participation theorists to gain a better understanding of this brand of participation. When talking about mobile participation, the social shaping of mobile technologies, as well as society’s influence on mobile technologies (see Bijker, 1997) have to be discussed in tandem with participatory exercises. This may better inform discourse and practice on/around mobile participation. At the same time, mobile participation for the end user has to be seen within the global capitalist trade spaces (Huesca, 2003). This issue points to the user/consumer dichotomy, and the recognition that in many cases these two are not mutually exclusive but mutually constitutive of each other. Situating mobile participation within this frame of user/consumer exposes the limits within which participation is carried out through mobile technologies. Mobile technologies are part of capitalist expansion and global trade (Moemeka, 1994), meaning that as consumer products, their use is situated within this reality. Communicating with health workers, for example, requires the community members engaging in this practice to have credit on their phones. In cases where the communication is challenged by economic concerns, the form that participation takes challenges the whole citizen involvement discussion. The processes within which mobile participation occurs deserve closer scholarly attention, with the hope that the method and the methodology that inform the practice can be strengthened. In this chapter we have established that participation is a loaded concept with a range of different meanings (see also Cornwall, 2003). Some theorists seem to agree that participation equals development (Waisbord, 2003). Our examination of mobile participation led us to apply maximalist theories within the participatory approaches to development. Communication as a process is at the centre of maximalist versions of participation that entail dialogue, or at best interaction between planners and the people/intended beneficiaries without losing sight of power and

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the question of whose voices are being heard and whose opinions are being heeded. Mobile technologies enable communication, and access should provide information that would allow recipients to act on the information, respond to it, change it and ultimately alter their life situations. But as the sample evaluated showed, participation in development is highly dependent on how development itself is conceptualised (see also Traxler, 2008; Duncombe, 2010; Svensson and Wamala-Larsson, 2015).

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CHAPTER THREE LOW LITERACY, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES MOUSTAFA ZOUINAR 1 AND MAME AWA NDIAYE 2

The huge growth of mobile telephony in Africa has given rise to several mobile for development initiatives aimed at using this technology to foster socioeconomic development. However, the low rates of literacy in many African countries may impede the use of mobile phones. Up to now the majority of existing mobile applications and user interfaces require the ability to read and write. As a consequence, the goal of mobile for development discourse may be impeded as low-literate people may not be able to use these services fully. This issue raises the question of how to design mobile phones and services that are more inclusive and participative and take low literacy into account. This requires understanding how low literacy affects mobile phone use. The study reported in this chapter explores the usage of mobile phones by lowliterate users in Senegal. It describes three usage patterns and examines the relationships between low literacy and these patterns. It discusses the implications of the empirical findings in terms of participation and shows that the consequences of low literacy on mobile use constitute a serious challenge for mobile for development discourse.

1 Orange Labs R&D, Department of Sociology and Economics Networks and Services, 38-40 Rue du Général Leclerc, 92130 Issy les Moulineaux, France [email protected], tél: +33 1 45 29 46 44 2 Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Center of Technological and Pedagogical Resources (CRTP), Dakar, Senegal [email protected]

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Introduction The increasing use of mobile telephony in African countries has led to the idea that this technology can be used to enhance socioeconomic development in this continent (Donner, 2008). It is claimed that mobile phones can increase access to information for marginalised groups, promote autonomy and enhance citizens’ participation in economic, social and political life. But as pointed out in previous research, this potential cannot be turned into reality only through ownership of or access to technology. It requires several other conditions. One important condition is the capacity to use mobile phones effectively. This device was however created in Western countries, for people who can read and write. The majority of mobile for development initiatives have led to the design of text-based services that require these skills. For example, many existing mobile applications are based on SMS (e.g., Ushaidi, 3 FrontLineSMS 4). In Africa, however, there are millions of people who may not be able to use those services because their literacy levels are low. According to the United Nations, 775 million adults lack basic reading and writing skills, the majority of whom are women (500 million). As far as the mobile for development discourse is concerned, the potential benefits expected from mobile technology in terms of socioeconomic development in Africa may be hindered by low literacy (Dodson, Sterling and Bennett, 2013). This raises the question of how to design mobile phones and services that are more inclusive. In this regard, understanding how low literacy affects the usage of mobile phones is an important issue. This chapter presents an ethnographic study 5 of the usage of mobile phones in Senegal, where the levels of literacy are low; only 49.7 per cent of all adults are literate. 6 Senegal is a multilingual country where different oral and written languages coexist. French, inherited from the colonial era, is the official and main written language. It is used in different activities (administration, education, business etc) and understood by 15–20 per cent of all males and 1–2 per cent of all females. 7 Six Senegalese languages have the status of national languages (Wolof, Pulaar, Serrer, Joola, 3

http://www.ushahidi.com http://www.frontlinesms.com 5 The study reported in this paper is part of a larger Orange project looking at how to develop user interfaces that expand the capabilities of low-literate people to use mobile phones. 6 Human Development Report (United Nations Development Program, 2011). 7 http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/senegal.htm, retrieved on 08-28-2014 4

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Malinké, and Soninké), with Wolof the most widely spoken language; spoken by 90 per cent of the population. 8 A few people can also read or write in Arabic. Low literacy is a major concern and considered one of the main factors for intergenerational poverty. According to the Human Development Report (United Nations Development Programme, 2011), this is more serious in rural areas and among women – 82 per cent of the rural population are low-literate, 9 and only 39 per cent of women aged 15 years and over are literate. With respect to the usage of mobile phones, Senegal has over 12 million subscribers 10 (the total population is about 13 million). This trend raises the following questions: How do low-literate people use their mobile phones in Senegal? Which services do they manage to use? Which functions and services are they unable to use because of their limited ability to read and write? This chapter is organised as follows. We define low literacy in Section 2. We then describe related work in Section 3. Sections 4 and 5 present the participants and analyse the data of our ethnographic investigation. The results are discussed in Section 6. We conclude in Section 7.

Defining Low Literacy The most common definition of literacy is that it refers to the fundamental skills of reading and writing. It sometimes includes abilities to manipulate and apply numerical concepts, usually referred to as numeracy. Literacy is increasingly understood as the set of abilities enabling individuals to participate in relevant social activities. For example, UNESCO defines literacy as The ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written material associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society (UNESCO, 2008).

This definition contextualises the notion of literacy by connecting it to its role in the lives of individuals in modern societies. Another approach is to see literacy as a set of practices that are socially organised and make use of symbol systems (Scribner and Cole, 1981). This approach undelines the socially, culturally and historically situated character of these practices. 8

http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/senegal.htm, retrieved on 08-28-2014 http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/senegal.htm, retrieved on 08-28-2014 10 http://www.artpsenegal.net/images/documents/Rapport%20T1_2013.pdf 9

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The advent of information technologies has led to the distinction of other forms of literacies such as “computer literacy” or, more recently, “digital literacy.” These expressions have been introduced to take into account the fact that the use of information and communication technologies (e.g., computers, Internet and mobile phones) requires specific skills which in one way or another involve “traditional” literacy. The use of mobile phones is sometimes analysed through the notion of digital literacy (Mater O’Neill and Asseo, 2013). Although research shows that the use of digital technologies requires other skills that cannot be subsumed under traditional definitions of literacy (ability to read and write), it should be noted that there is no stable definition of digital literacy (Lankshear and Knobel, 2008). In this chapter, the term ‘low literacy’ will designate a lack of abilities for interpreting/reading and writing material when using mobile phones. ‘Low-literate’ will refer to a continuous scale representing different degrees of proficiency, ranging from individuals who completely lack literacy skills to those with only limited literacy skills. As noted by Basu and Foster (1998), the evaluation of low literacy should also take into account the social context (for instance, the presence in a household of a literate person) in which the individuals live. These authors propose to distinguish between two types of illiterate persons: ‘proximate illiterate’, referring to a person who co-habits with at least one literate member in the same household; and ‘isolated illiterate’, referring to a person who lives in a household that does not include any literate member. In this chapter, we will see how low-literate people rely on proximate literates to use their mobile phones.

Related Work The study presented in this chapter fits in with a body of recent research aiming at understanding the issues raised by low literacy in mobile phone use, and exploring how to design mobile user interfaces adapted to lowliterate people. For example, Chipchase et al. carried out a study in Asia (India, China and Nepal) and observed that illiterate mobile phone users can call and answer incoming calls but cannot use phone features that need text editing by themselves (e.g., SMS and address book) (Chipchase, 2008). They identified different practices developed by users to cope with their inability to use these features. These practices include memorisation of contacts and use of intermediaries to assist in phone use. Dey, Newman and Prendergast (2011) found that use of mobile phones by Bangladeshi farmers is limited due to language barriers, a lack of literacy, and other factors such as unfamiliar English terminologies, inappropriate translation

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to local language and financial constraints. They observed that these users cope with these limitations through inventive patterns and adaptation. Medhi et al. (2011) found six usability elements that impede effective use of mobile phones by low-literate people: hierarchical navigation, scroll bars, soft-key functions, nonnumeric inputs, and language difficulties. Although they shed light on how low literacy affects the use of mobile phones, these studies do not give an in-depth analysis of low literacy. As we will see, one of the main contributions of this chapter is to broaden the analysis of low literacy. We will show how this analysis allows us to distinguish three different patterns of mobile use that are related to three levels of low literacy. Another contribution of this chapter is to discuss the issue of low literacy and mobile phone use in terms of participation. This concept has multiple meanings. It is usually used as a conceptual tool for analysing power relations in decision-making processes. For example, Pateman (1970) distinguishes two forms of participation in her analysis of the involvement of citizens in democratic decisions. Partial participation refers to “a process in which two or more parties influence each other in the making of decisions but the final power to decide rests with one party only” (Pateman 1970:70), while full participation is defined as “a process where each individual member of a decision-making body has equal power to determine the outcome of decisions” (Pateman 1970:71). Participation has become a prominent concept in development discourses (Cornwall and Brock, 2005) where it can be seen as an end or a means (Parfitt, 2004). It is often conflated with the concepts of empowerment and inclusiveness. For example, the UNESCO definition of literacy referred to above points to the importance of inclusive and participative social engagements. Participation is also mobilised in fields dealing with design (ergonomics, human computer interaction, architecture, etc.) In these fields, participatory design, which was originally developed in Scandinavia, usually refers to the idea of involving users as much as possible in the design process. 11 In this perspective, participation can be seen as a means for designing products or environments adapted to end users. There are also approaches that place participation as an end or objective of design. For example, “design for all” is defined as designing products and services that “ensure that anyone, including future generations, regardless of age, gender, capacities or cultural background, can participate 12 in social,

11

Drawing on a Marxist approach, participatory design was originally developed to allow workers to participate in the design of their tools and work environments (Spinuzzi, 2005). 12 Our emphasis.

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economic, cultural and leisure activities with equal opportunities.” 13 In this definition, participation is not just about taking part in decisionmaking processes but includes engagement in societal activities. The concept of participation raises many questions about the way it is used, especially in development discourse and interventions. It has been argued that participation carries different configurations, often framed and justified towards particular development initiatives (Cornwall and Brock, 2005). It has also been contended that in mainstream development discourse, this concept is reinterpreted in such a way that it degenerates into a development buzzword, failing to offer the inclusiveness it implies (Cornwall and Brock, 2005). Departing from these critics and grounded in an ethnographic study in Senegal, this chapter looks at the ways in which low-literate mobile users engage with the mobile phone, with the intention of highlighting this segment of society for purposes of designing user interfaces that will help harness broader participation regardless of a person’s level of literacy. We will show how, although mobile phones offer new opportunities in terms of participation, these opportunities will not be accessible to low-literate people as long as mobile phones and applications are not adapted to their abilities.

Participants This study is based on fieldwork done in Senegal. Participants were recruited in rural and urban areas by going into the field (markets, restaurants, shops, etc.) and asking people we met whether they had a mobile phone, how long they had been using it, and whether they could read and write. These screening questions allowed us to select 20 lowliterate users. After assessing their literacy and numeracy skills, we interviewed selected participants 14 on how they use their mobile phone and their experiences. We carried out an in-depth study into each user’s profile and their everyday use of their mobile phone. We asked them to show us how they use their mobile phone for a variety of tasks (e.g., making a call, entering a phone number, adding a contact, reading or writing SMS messages, etc.). In the rest of this chapter, we will refer to these tasks as ‘mobile tasks’. The interviews were semi-structured, conducted in Wolof by a native of Senegal (the second author of this 13

http://www.designforall.org We did not select fully literate users as a control group because the focus of our research was on low-literate users, and a control group would not have been useful for this study. 14

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chapter) and video-recorded. The majority of the interviews took place on site (in markets, shops, etc.). Participants were domestic workers, daily wage labourers (e.g., peddlers), taxi drivers, hairdressers, storekeepers, or unemployed. They had low levels of formal education, and no experience of personal computers. They were aged between 22 and 52 (14 were under 40, 10 female and 10 male) and had been living in different parts of Senegal (in cities and rural areas). All participants were able to speak several languages (Wolof, Arabic, Sérère, Pulaar, or French).

Data Analysis The analysis of collected data was qualitative. We categorised our participants’ accounts into different themes (e.g., how they use their mobile phones, what motivates their usage, problems they experienced when using mobile phones). We extracted patterns of mobile phone use from these accounts and from observations of participants interaction with their mobile phones during interviews. We also analysed the relationships between participants’ usage of their mobile phone and their literacy skills, including numeracy. In this chapter, we report on the main and most remarkable findings that emerged from the data. Before presenting the patterns of mobile use we found, we will describe the levels of low literacy we identified.

Participants’ Levels of Literacy The literacy screening test allowed us to group the participants into three categories: illiterates, semi-literates and advanced semi-literates. The first category refers to participants (7) who have never been to school, are unable to read and write in any language, but have numeracy skills (e.g., they can recognise numbers). Some of these participants can recognise their names but cannot write them. The second category is constituted of participants who are semi-literates (10); they left school very early or went to the Quran School where they learned Arabic. They can read, understand and write simple phrases in one or two languages (e.g., in French, Arabic, Wolof or Pulaar), but compared to advanced semi-literates, their capacities are very limited. They possess basic numerical skills, have the ability to perform arithmetical operations (e.g., adding two simple numbers) but have problems with operations that involve three or more numbers. This second category is actually more complex in the sense that it comprises different literacy profiles. For example, some of these participants could recognise more words than others. The third category (advanced semi-

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literates) refers to participants (3) who can read, partly understand and write complex sentences (in Arabic, French, Wolof or Pulaar), so they have more literacy skills than the other two groups of participants. In the next section, we will describe how these levels of literacy affect the usage of mobile phones.

Patterns of Mobile Use The majority of mobile phone handsets owned by the participants ranged from basic black and white screen phones to used feature phones 15 with colour screens and physical keyboards. Basic phones are low-end phones that offer voice calling and text messaging functionality. Feature phones also offer basic multimedia features (MMS, 16 camera, music) and Internet capabilities. One participant had a smartphone with a soft keyboard. The main language setting of the mobile phones was French. Three participants had mobile phones with settings in other languages (German, English and Portuguese). The analysis of collected data allowed us to distinguish between three patterns of use that are mainly determined by the participants’ levels of literacy. These patterns are basic use, limited use and quasi-autonomous use (see Table 2).

Pattern 1: Basic Use Basic use implies a very limited usage of mobile phones. They are mainly used for receiving calls from family members, friends or clients. Some users who showed this pattern were able to make calls from the call log (call the last numbers) or from notebooks, provided they could identify the numbers. Some of them could also use the music or radio functionality of their mobile phone. None of these users use text messaging (SMS) or the address book (e.g., adding or finding a contact). My problem is how to add contacts, I cannot do it; I do not know how to find a contact in my contact list. 17 (F, 38 years old)

Consequently, very few contacts were stored in those users’ mobile phones. Almost all of them kept paper phone books (figure 2), which 15

A feature phone is a low-end mobile phone with limited capabilities in contrast to a smartphone. It typically provides voice calling and text messaging capabilities, in addition to basic multimedia and Internet capabilities. 16 Multimedia Messaging Service. 17 Translated from Wolof.

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contained contact information written down by a proximate literate (mainly family members or friends). We found this pattern of usage mostly among illiterate participants. It should be noted that we found one illiterate user performed as well as semi-literates in the mobile phone tasks. This indicates that the level of literacy may not be the only factor explaining illiterate people’s usage of mobile phones.

Figure 2 Example of a phone book.

Table 2 Relationships between patterns of mobile use and levels of literacy. Illiterate usersBasic use

Semi-literate users Limited use

-Used their phone mainly for receiving calls -Relied on help from family and friends to use other features -Could not use SMS -Could not enter contacts by themselves -Some of them could use radio and music -Used pieces of paper or notebooks to store phone numbers -Very few contacts were stored in their mobile phones

-Used their phone mainly for receiving and making calls -Did not use SMS -Some of them could manage with help to perform a range of functions related to contact management (e. g., adding a contact) -Needed help to use other features of their phone (e. g., changing the phone settings, reading, writing or sending a SMS) -Used pieces of paper or notebooks to store numbers

Advanced semi-literate users Quasi-autonomous use -Used their mobile almost like full literate users. -Could write and read SMS messages -Relied on proximate literates to write “complex” SMS messages (e. g., to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes)

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Pattern 2: Limited Use Users following this second pattern could use more features of their mobile phones and perform more tasks by themselves. Some of them could add contacts, make calls from the address book or the call log, and use the radio and the music functionality. All of them called and received calls from friends, family members or clients but they did not use SMS either because they could not write or their writing abilities were low. I know how to send messages but I do not do it because I do not have a good knowledge of French. (Female, 24 years old)

They often called upon a proximate for help, for instance, to read a message or change the phone settings (e.g., language). They also used pieces of paper or notebooks to store phone numbers. The majority of these users were semi-literate. It should be noted that the inability of some of these participants to use some features of their mobile phones may be due to the language settings of their phones. For example, one semiliterate user could not write text messages because the interface was in French. He would have been able to do it if the interface was in Arabic. Illiterate and semi-literate participants had different ways of dealing with their difficulties in using their mobile phones. These tactics, like “arts of doing” (de Certeau, 1990), are practical ways of compensating for their inability to perform some tasks on their mobile phones. One tactic comprises memorising techniques. For example, some participants could memorise all the digits of a phone number while others memorise only part of it. Some illiterate participants could recognise a contact depending on the length or the first letter of a contact’s name. They could also memorise keypad sequences. Another tactic, which we have already mentioned, consists of asking a proximate (a family member or a friend) to help perform some tasks (e.g., making a call, adding a contact, reading or writing a message or checking airtime balance). When I receive a message, I call upon my brother who reads it for me; when I want to know how much airtime I have left, I rely on him to check my airtime balance. (Female, 47 years old) I need help when I need to send messages, add airtime or add contacts. (Female, 24 years old) My children add contacts; I do not do it; I cannot do it. (Female, 58 years old)

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This tactic is common among illiterate and semi-literates users, and shows how the social environment plays an important role in the use of mobile phones by low-literate users. It also shows how the use of mobile phones by low-literate people is mainly a social practice. Although relying on others to use mobile phones is not experienced as a problem, some of these participants regretted that they were not more autonomous. For example, a woman shopkeeper mentioned When a client wants to buy for about 100 000 CFA, 18 we have to call upon someone to help us to calculate or read a message; if we could read, we would be more autonomous (Female, 58 years old)

Another participant similarly expressed a wish to be more autonomous when using mobile phones. If someone wants to help me use my mobile phone more effectively, I would ask him to teach me how to read messages and how to send [music or videos] to a contact so I can do these tasks by myself. (Female, 24)

These extracts from the interviews show that some participants feel impeded by their lack of literacy skills, and seem to aspire to be more autonomous. Another interesting observation is that, in spite of their low level of literacy, semi-literate users, and some illiterate ones, developed an understanding of how their mobile phones work through trial and error. Albeit limited, this understanding helps them to accomplish certain tasks. For example, one participant had a mobile phone with a German interface. He did not change the language settings because he did not know how to and relied on a minimal practical understanding of how the German interface works. Once they have learned how a mobile phone works, the majority of these participants try to keep the same model of phone because they think that they would be “lost” if they adopted another model.

Pattern 3: Quasi-autonomous Use This third pattern is characterised by a much more autonomous usage of mobile phones. Participants who showed this pattern used almost all the functions of their phones by themselves. Most of them are advanced semiliterates. They can write, read and send SMS messages but they sometimes ask for help to correct the messages they write (e. g., to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes). 18

Local currency.

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In this section, we have seen that low literacy is a major barrier to using mobile phones and applications. Although illiterate and semi-literate users use them in a limited way, mobile phones have an important place in their daily lives and they derive benefits from this technology despite the difficulties of use. One of the most important benefits is that mobile phones enable them to stay in touch with their families and friends, and clients for business purposes. Different metaphors were used by the participants to highlight the great extent to which their mobile phone plays an important part in their everyday lives. For example, one participant described it as a means of transportation. My mobile phone is my car; I do not need to travel to solve my problems. (Male, 25 years old, shopkeeper)

Another participant described his mobile phone as a “precious” object. My mobile phone is everything for me, without it I feel I lack something precious. (Male)

These examples show how mobile phones have become meaningful objects for these users. It is interesting to note that they did not reject mobile telephony in spite of the usability difficulties they experienced. It seems that the benefits offered by mobile phones outweigh these difficulties.

Discussion In this section, we explore whether the limited usage of mobile phones by low-literate people may generate or exacerbate digital inequalities and how to design mobile phones and applications that are more inclusive. Digital inequality is related to the concept of the digital divide. A great deal of research on the digital divide has focused on whether people have “physical” access to digital technology, especially the Internet. However, this approach to digital divide has been contested (Warshauer, 2001; DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste and Shafer, 2004; Selwyn, 2004). It has been demonstrated that access to ICT does not imply use of these technologies. Different frameworks have been proposed to re-conceptualise the notion of digital divide. According to Selwyn (2004), it is best seen “as a hierarchy of access,” including use. DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste and Shafer (2004) identified five dimensions of digital inequality related to the Internet:

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x Technical apparatus; i.e., the technical means by which people access the Internet x Autonomy of use; i.e., the extent to which people exercise control over a technology in terms of use x Skills; i.e., the competences needed to use the Internet (e.g., how to log on, conduct search, download information, etc.) x Availability of social support (e.g., assistance from friends and family members, assistance from support staff) x Variations in use; i.e., the purposes for which people use technology. This dimension aims to take into account the fact that all uses of the Internet are not equal in terms of social, economic and political uses (e. g., recreational uses vs uses that increase socioeconomic welfare, like using the Internet for learning). .

Warshauer (2001) proposed an alternate framework based on the notion of social inclusion, which refers “to the extent that individuals, families, and communities are able to fully participate in society and control the ir own destinies, taking into account a variety of factors related to economic resources, employment, health, education, housing, recreation, culture, and civic engagement.” According to this framework, efforts should focus on how to use technology to promote social inclusion, instead of simply seeking to overcome gaps by provision of equipment. Even though these frameworks were developed in the context of the analysis of digital inequalities related to the Internet, they offer a good basis for reasoning about the usage of mobile phones. In this chapter, we have seen that mobile phones enable our participants to stay in touch with their families and friends or participate in their social networks. They also help to support business activities by enabling entrepreneurs to stay in contact with clients. These consequences can be seen as positive outcomes of the usage of mobile phones as the devices facilitate some aspects of the Senegalese’s lives. In addition, we observed that participants rely on social support from family members and friends. We have seen that illiterate and semi-literate participants were unable to use all the functions of their mobile phones. We hypothesise that this result points to a possible inequality in use: unlike low-literate people, literate users are able to use more features of mobile phones and are therefore more likely to benefit from the new opportunities offered by mobile technology in terms of broader or full participation. For example, in many mobile for development discourses that follow the social inclusion approach, it is claimed that the use of mobile technologies in mGovernance can increase access to public information and people’s

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participation in civic life (e.g., Zambrano and Seward, 2012). It is reported that mobile phones may provide greater inclusion and foster broader participation by “allowing citizens to be engaged in political and socioeconomic decision-making processes” (Zambrano and Seward, 2012: 19). However, the majority of mGovernment applications that have been developed are based on SMS functionality (e.g., Ushahidi, a set of platforms for collecting and mapping inputs from citizens). This may engender inequality in participation, as low-literate people may not be able to raise and exercise their “voice” through these applications. Mobile technology may offer new opportunities in terms of participation in social life but these opportunities will not be accessible to low-literate people as long as mobile phones and applications are not adapted to their abilities. Unless efforts are made to enable low-literate people to use these applications and mobile phones, claims of inclusive participation through mobile phones will be rather incomplete or partial (See Pateman, 1970; Cornwall and Brock, 2005). These issues raise the question of how to design mobile phones and applications that are more inclusive. Different solutions to this challenge have been proposed. One of them consists of improving the usability of mobile phones. Several usability recommendations have been suggested in previous research (e.g., Medhi et al., 2011): use icons/graphics or voice or a combination of the two (multimodality), minimise hierarchical structures, avoid requiring nonnumeric text input, avoid menus that require scrolling, provide voice annotation support wherever possible, or local language support, both in text and audio. Interesting user interfaces and mobile platforms for low-literate users have been developed. For example, Cuendet et al. (2013) developed a mobile application that makes agriculture-related video content accessible to low-literate farmers by using icons. Friscira, Knock and Huang (2012) proposed an application that enables low-literate users to listen to and compose text messages through icons. There are also projects and platforms that propose the use of Interactive Voice response Systems (IVR) as a means of dealing with the issue of low literacy in different contexts. For example, the VOICES project explored this technology in the context of agriculture in Mali. 19 The IVR functionality of the Voto Mobile platform has been used in pilots for collecting information from people in Ghana, and the results have shown that voice surveys produce higher participation rates than SMSbased surveys (Farmer and Boots, 2014). Joshi et al. (2013) developed an IVR system that offers treatment support to people living with HIV/AIDS in India, especially those who are low-literate or do not use SMS. 19

http://mvoices.eu

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But the design of mobile user interfaces that take into account lowliterate users still raises several issues. For example, the meaning of icons is best understood when accompanied by textual descriptions (Chipchase, 2008). Speech interfaces may be unable to overcome many of the barriers associated with low literacy (Cuendet et al., 2013). With respect to multimodal interfaces, low-literate people have difficulty switching between modalities: for example, voice and icons (Cuendet et al., 2013). The lack of knowledge of application context (e.g., banking) also seems to hinder the benefits of improving the user interface (Medhi, Cutrell and Kentaro, 2010). Despite recent efforts to use local languages in the design of speech-based mobile user interfaces, the majority of voice technologies and services deployed in low and middle income countries are still based on European languages. Another problematic issue is that design recommendations provided in previous research are sometimes contradictory. For example, Medhi et al. (2011) recommend avoiding the use of scrollbar, especially in menus while Chaudry et al. (2012) recommend “incorporating scrollbars in the mobile applications for low literacy users” (p. 99). A second way of expanding or facilitating the usage of mobile phones by low-literate people is through the creation of sociotechnical environments that help them perform tasks: for example, employing a live operator for calling contacts (Chipchase, 2008) or collecting data (Medhi et al., 2011). One conclusion we can draw from all this research is that the question of designing for low-literate people remains an open one. More work is needed to find proper design recommendations. Another issue is that the majority of usability-oriented studies that explored design solutions were performed in lab environments so there is little data about both the efficiency of these solutions in “real” environments and appropriation. Lab studies are useful but not enough. Research should include more field studies.

Conclusion Our study shows that low literacy leads to a partial usage of mobile phones among our subjects in Senegal, which is consistent with the results of studies conducted in other countries like India, China, Nepal and South Africa (e.g., Chipchase, 2008; Medhi et al., 2009). One of the main contributions of this study is that it helps provide a deeper analysis of the relationships between mobile use and low literacy. The analysis allowed us to distinguish three levels of low literacy: illiterates, semi-literates and advanced semi-literates, and we saw that these levels affect the usage of

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mobile phones in different ways. This classification may help designers to specify which level of low literacy they have to address when designing a mobile user interface. It shows that the focus should be on illiterate and semi-literate individuals as they experience more difficulties in using their phones than advanced semi-literate users. These difficulties constitute a serious challenge to mobile for development initiatives, may exacerbate digital inequalities and, ultimately, lead to partial participation in societal activities. The opportunities offered by mobile telephony may not benefit all of the populations living in low and middle income countries where there are low levels of literacy. This raises the question of how to overcome these difficulties. One solution discussed in this chapter is to improve the usability of mobile phones by developing user interfaces that allow lowliterate users to use as many features as possible on their mobile phones. The design of mobile services is certainly not a panacea. As noted by Chipchase (2008), raising the general level of literacy and numeracy in a population remains the best solution in the long term. It is interesting to note that mobile phones can also be used as means to fight low literacy. According to a recent UNESCO study on mobile reading, 20 mobile phones are increasingly used for reading activities in many developing countries. For millions of people living in those countries where books are not generally accessible, mobile phones allow them to access a variety of long-form texts that can help them develop and sustain their literacy skills. It is probably the mix of these different strategies (design, education, etc.) that will help achieve the objectives of the “mobile for development” discourse.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Valérie Ledunois for her support and the participants in this study. Also, thanks to Caroline Wamala-Larsson, Christelle Scharff and Johan Hellström for their valuable feedback on the manuscript.

References Basu, Kausick and Foster, James E. “On Measuring Literacy.” The Economic Journal 108(451), 1998:1733–1749.

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http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002274/227436e.pdf

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Chaudry, Beenish; Connelly, Kay; Siek, Katie and Welch, Janet. “Mobile Interface Design for Low Literacy Populations.” Paper presented at the International Health Informatics Symposium, Miami, Florida, January 28–30, 2012. Chipchase, Jan. “Reducing Illiteracy as a Barrier to Mobile Communication.” In Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, edited by James E. Katz, 79-89. The MIT Press, 2008. (de) Certeau, Michel. “L'Invention du quotidien 1. : Arts de faire.” Paris, Gallimard, 1990. Cornwall, Andrea and Brock, Karen. “What Do Buzzwords Do for Development Policy? A Critical Look at 'Participation', 'Empowerment' and 'Poverty Reduction'. ” Third World Quarterly, 26 (7), 2005: 1043–1060. Cuendet, Sebastien; Medhi, Indrani; Bali, Kalika and Cutrell, Edward. “VideoKheti: Making Video Content Accessible to Low-literate and Novice Users.” Paper presented at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Paris, France, April 27–May 2, 2013. DiMaggio, Paul; Hargittai, Eszter; Celeste, Coral and Shafer, Steven. “Digital Inequality: From Unequal Access to Differentiated Use.” In Social Inequality, edited by K. Neckerman, 355-400. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004. Dey, Bidit; Newman, David and Prendergast, Renee. “Analysing Appropriation and Usability in Social and Occupational Lives: An Investigation of Bangladeshi Farmers’ Use of Mobile Telephony.” Information Technology & People 24(1), 2011:46–63. Dodson, Leslie; Sterling, Revi and Bennett, John. “Minding the Gaps: Cultural, Technical and Gender-Based Barriers to Mobile Use in OralLanguage Berber Communities in Morocco.” Paper presented at the in International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, Cape Town, South Africa, December 07–10, 2013. Donner, Jonathan. “Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature.” The Information Society 24(3), 2008: 140-159. Farmer, Leah and Boots, Mark. “Barriers and Solutions in using M4D: Connecting Directly to Citizens for Scalable Impact.” Paper presented at the Mobile For Development Conference (M4D), Dakar, Senegal, April 7–9, 2014. Friscira, Elsa; Knoche, Hendrick and Huang, Jeffrey. “Getting in Touch with Text: Designing a Mobile Phone Application for Illiterate Users

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to Harness SMS.” Paper presented at the ACM Symposium on Computing for Development, Atlanta, GA, March 11–12, 2012. Joshi, Anirudha; Rane, Mandar; Roy, Debjani; Emmadi, Nagraj; Srinivasan, Padma; Kumarasamy, N.; Pujari, Sanjay; Solomon, Davidson; Rodrigues, Rashmi; Saple D.G.; Sen, Kamalika; Veldeman, Els and Rutten, Romain. “Supporting Treatment of People Living with HIV / AIDS in Resource Limited Settings with IVRs.” CHI 2014, April 26–May 1, Toronto, Canada. Lankshear, Colin and Knobel, Michelle. “Introduction: Digital Literacies—Concepts, Policies and Practices.” In Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices, edited by Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M., 1-16. Peter Lang Publishing, 2008. Medhi, Indrani; Cutrell, Edward and Kentaro, Toyama. “It’s Not Just Illiteracy.” Paper presented at the international conference on Interaction Design & International Development, Mumbai, India, March 20–24, 2010. Medhi, Indrani; Patnaik, Somani; Brunskill, Emma; Gautama, S. N. Nagesana; Thies, William and Toyama, Kentaro. “Designing Mobile Interfaces for Novice and Low Literacy Users.” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 18 (1), 2011:2. O’Neill, María; de Mater, M. and Asseo, Arthur. Digital Illiteracy among Puerto Rican Middle Class Smartphone Users. Rubberband LLP Publications, 2013. Parfitt, Trevor. “The Ambiguity of Participation: a Qualified Defence of Participatory Development.” Third World Quarterly, 25 (3): 537–555. Pateman, Carole. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1970. Selwyn, Neil. “Reconsidering Political and Popular Understandings of the Digital Divide.” New Media & Society 6(3), 2004: 341–362. Spinuzzi, C. (2005). “The Methodology of Participatory Design.” Technical Communication 52(2): 163–174. Warschauer, M. “Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide.” First Monday, 7 (7), 2002. Retrieved October 10, 2014 from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_7/warschauer/index.html Zambrano, Raul, Seward, Ruhiya. “Mobile Technologies and Empowerment: Enhancing Human Development through Participation and Innovation.” New York, United Nations Development Program (2012).

CHAPTER FOUR CASTING THE NET WIDER: MOBILE TELEPHONE MEDIATION AND PARTICIPATION IN HIV/AIDS INITIATIVES IN GHANA PERPETUAL CRENTSIL 1

This chapter 2 explores patient participation through the perspective of the mediation of mobile phones when used to monitor and remind HIVpositive persons and AIDS patients to take their medication. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of the role of cultural aspects in technology studies and of the social aspects of HIV/AIDS in Africa. The chapter is based on an ethnographic study of mobile phones for healthcare delivery services in Ghana, using qualitative methods of observation and interviews. It argues that, despite the enthusiasm about the potential of mobile phones to improve health outcomes, AIDS patients only enjoy partial participation because of their lack of mobile ownership and access to phones. The chapter concludes that there is need to give greater attention to issues about participation in mHealth initiatives in order to understand the interplay between the contexts and factors promoting the programmes and those hindering them.

1

Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Finland [email protected] 2 The research on which this chapter is based was part of a larger research project ‘Mobile telephony, gender and development in Africa and India’ funded by the Academy of Finland, involving researchers from the University of Jyväskylä and the University of Helsinki, both in Finland. The author was based at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala/Sweden when this article was written. The researcher is currently based at the University of Helsinki. Email: [email protected]

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Introduction Mobile phones have shown promise in providing greater access to healthcare for populations in African countries and in HIV treatment and prevention initiatives. The use of mobile phones to improve health outcomes, which is known as mobile health (or mHealth, a sub-segment of electronic health or eHealth), is now widespread and encouraging greater community participation. The devices have the potential to enhance the efficiency of service delivery in healthcare systems by enabling people to receive health service through mobile phone communication (Lemaire, 2011:10). Thus participation on the part of the recipient communities can be enabled through mobile phone communication as far as monitoring and gaining access to health services are concerned. The World Health Organization (WHO) sees the potential of mobile telephony to bring health services closer to many communities, and has defined mHealth as the provision of health services and information via mobile technologies such as mobile phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) (WHO, 2012). While there is the potential for many people to participate in mobile phone health communication and HIV/AIDS initiatives, mHealth practices are not without limitations. Mobile penetration has surpassed the number of people in some African countries, such as Ghana and South Africa, yet the circulation of these devices continues to be uneven, not just in numbers (where some individuals own two or more SIM-cards and handsets) but across social categories such as age, gender, class and ethnicity. For example, in a study of mHealth for HIV/AIDS solutions in South Africa, Phippard (2012: 164-5) identified potential barriers like gender, language, literacy, training, financial sustainability, scalability, government cooperation, and dependence on the inadequate pre-existing health infrastructure. Thus, benefitting from better health service delivery through mobile telephony can be undermined by access inequalities. Studies focusing on the benefits and challenges of using mobile phones to enhance medical responses and greater access to healthcare indicate variations in the levels of patient participation. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), communicationcentric approaches are regarded as essential in HIV/AIDS intervention (UNAIDS, 2004). As Phippard (2012: 128) points out, new ICTs (information, communication and technology) – particularly mobile phones – present considerable opportunities in this regard, particularly in Africa (De Tolly and Alexander, 2009; Lester, Gelmon and Plumer, 2006) since sub-Saharan Africa remains the worst affected region in the global HIV epidemic. But although there is a significant number of mobile phone

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subscribers, users might have multiple subscriptions, as mentioned earlier, which means others have none. This and other challenges justify the caution in recent studies (e.g., Han, 2012; Phippard, 2012) against the enthusiastic and optimistic views that mobile phones will incontrovertibly improve health outcomes. In Ghana, the country under study, the challenges mentioned above do not enable holistic/wider/full participation on the part of HIV-positive persons. This chapter will show that despite the hype surrounding mHealth solutions in developing countries, the notion of participation needs to be thoroughly explored in context. As was argued previously, there are variations in participation, and in Ghana, HIV-positive persons and AIDS patients are only partially involved. Fluid identities and statuses lead to partial participation, as defined by Pateman (1970), in the patients’ use of mobile phones in health communication. The issue of participation has gained the attention of media analysts and social scientists in recent years, mainly because it pertains to equality, people’s rights and inclusion (Maier-Rabler and Huber, 2010; Muller, Seligson and Turan, 1987). As neoliberal values and culture thrive, the issue of how to enhance wider participation in various processes and everyday practices has become significant. Academic experts and technocrats have been exploring activities that could influence and shape wider participation and processes in social and cultural contexts (Lamprianou, 2013: 22). As Lamprianou (ibid, 39) has pointed out, (political) participation is a meaningful manifestation of social life that cannot be investigated in isolation from other aspects of life. This chapter examines patients’ use of mobile phones and participation in HIV/AIDS initiatives in the social, economic, cultural and political system in Ghana, and in the processes affected by values and underlying power arrangements that are crystallised in everyday practices and articulations. Symbolic fields such as family/kinship obligations, honour and shame systems, education, age, and gender inequalities denote dominant practices and enduring structures which cannot be ignored by people or overlooked by stakeholders when interpreting mobile phone use and individual participation in HIV/AIDS initiatives. The chapter draws on and contributes to the understanding of the role of cultural aspects in technology studies and the social aspects of HIV/AIDS in Africa. It argues that as long as there is partial participation for AIDS patients due to lack of ownership and access to phones, any hope that mobile phones will improve health outcomes is unrealistic. I begin this discussion with the theoretical framework within which participation has been analysed. I then move to HIV/AIDS and mobile phone use in Ghana

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(both change and continuity) and factors accounting for the partial participation of patients in HIV/AIDS initiatives (including issues related to individual, family/kinship dynamics, gender, and technical/organisational matters).

Theorising Participation in Development Participation has largely been analysed in politics and development issues, and many scholarly articles have sought to examine the concept, its meaning and its characteristics. In her seminal work, Pateman (1970) distinguishes between partial participation and full participation. Partial participation is a process in which two or more parties influence each other in the making of decisions but the final power to decide rests with one party only. In contrast, full participation is a process where each individual member of the decision-making body has equal power to determine the outcome of decisions (Pateman 1970: 70 –71, as cited in Carpentier 2011: 88). These dimensions have been incorporated into contemporary debate on participation in development studies. Cornwall (2004) examines participation where renewed concern with rights, power and difference in such debates has focused more on the institutions at the interface between the publics, providers and policy makers. She is convinced that participation has to do with representation, inclusion and voice, and that “one potentially useful way of characterising participation is using the concept of space, where a space can be emptied or filled, permeable or sealed” (p. 1). Fonjong’s (2001) analysis of women’s participation in development through nongovernmental organisation (NGO) efforts in Cameroon points to partial participation. She argues that women’s access to political participation and control, which the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) framework sees as the key in empowerment, is still inadequate in Cameroon (p. 234). In the ICT or new media sector, Olsson’s (2009:100) evaluation of participation in the Internet and the web (cyberspace) maintains that a participatory culture is largely based on formed interpretations of technological capabilities, with the media ecology offering potential inclusion. Maier-Rabler and Huber (2010:132) emphasise, in their examination of sustainable e-participation through participatory experiences in education, that participation is valuable, even indispensable, for democracy only when societies are inclusive and democratically organised. Discussions have also focused on other dimensions of participation, with power relations and local dynamics in the community attracting

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attention (e.g., Eversole, 2003; Parfitt, 2004; Mohan and Stokke, 2000). Eversole (2003) submits that participation is beset with pitfalls, including the complex social relationships in a community. For her, power, motivation, legitimacy, and trust are some of the key principles in understanding and managing the difficulties of participatory development. Encouraging local participation requires bridging the gap between empowered and disempowered communities, and more importantly having “a clear understanding of people and organisations involved, their relationships, and the social contexts of their actions” (ibid, 783). Mohan and Stokke (2000: 247), on their part, maintain that by focusing so heavily on ‘the local’, analysts of participation tend to downplay “local inequalities and power relations as well as national and transnational economic and political forces”. For Cornwall (2003: 1325), there are fixed assumptions about gender and power that require new alliances out of old divisions in order to build more inclusive participation. She states: “Bringing a gender perspective to bear on the practice of participation in development may assist in identifying strategies for amplifying voice and access to decision making of those who tend to be marginalised or excluded by mainstream development initiatives” (ibid). Other scholars focus on the paradoxes, contradictions and ambiguities of participation (e.g., Michener, 1998; Cornwall, 2004; Parfitt, 2004). Cornwall and Brock (2005) see participation and empowerment as words that speak of the laudable aim of enabling poor people to have voice and choice but have become paradoxical and “offer little hope of the world free of poverty that they are used to evoke” (p. 1043). According to Cornwall (2003:1325) efforts to promote participation in projects, programmes and policy consultation appear to offer the prospect of giving everyone a voice and a choice but in actual fact they usually do not. Community-driven development, participatory planning and other “finesounding initiatives that make claims of ‘full participation’ and ‘empowerment’ can turn out to be driven by particular gendered interests, leaving the least powerful without voice or much in the way of choice” (ibid, original emphasis). For Parfitt (2004: 538), the ambiguity of whether participation is used as a means or an end can give rise to contradictions that partly undermine the treatment of issues such as power and the nature of the community. Yet, although it is “a contested ground between those who would prefer to use it as a means to achieve certain ends and those who wish to emphasise its possibilities for emancipation”, participation can be seen as “an essential value in development despite its ambiguity” (ibid, 555). These debates relate mostly to people-to-people interactions. However, social

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interaction is more and more mediated by modern communication technologies such as the mobile phone. This technology can similarly instantiate situations of partial participation because for broader participation to occur, stable electricity, local content and a reliable mobile network need to be in place, which is not the case for a number of developing regions. Donner’s (2008) literature review and delineation of three major trends in mobile phone studies in developing countries – the adoption of phones, impact of the devices, and the interrelationships between mobile technologies and users – point to participation in ‘everyday life’, the role of governments, regulators and industry structures. In Ghana, Nimako et al. (2010) found that customer satisfaction of mobile technology networks was low. This led them to recommend that the national communications authority (NCA) in Ghana conduct independent periodic surveys to assess customer satisfaction of mobile phone companies’ service delivery, ostensibly to increase participation (p. 47). Essegbey and Frempong (2011) analysed the real and potential innovative use of mobile telephones by micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Ghana, examining the range of applications of mobile telephones in the MSEs, their emerging experiences and prospects of enhanced applications to expand the scope for businesses. The authors called for a more holistic promotion of innovations from the broad perspectives of policy formulation, regulation, policy implementation and enforcement. This study sees participation as essential to patients’ ability to assess key health information about their statuses, and views the concept in terms of full and partial participation of AIDS patients, following the metaphor of a space that can be filled/widened or emptied/ narrowed (Cornwall, 2004). The study defines participation as the ability to communicate freely with a health expert without any inhibition via a mobile phone, and studies the concept as a part of the cultural and communication transformations in Ghana’s health (HIV/AIDS) sector. It analyses participation in terms of exclusion, in relation to number of users or non-users of mobile phones, access/non-access as well as pitfalls concerning socioeconomic statuses such as gender inequalities, education, employment, and institutional or organisational factors. The discussion also focuses on the paradoxes, contradictions and ambiguities of participation such as those concerning mobile phones and the purported linkages to sexually loose morals, in addition to family/friends, phone sharing and privacy.

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Background and Methods This chapter is based on an ethnographic study of mobile phones for healthcare delivery services in the HIV/AIDS sector in Ghana, with mainly qualitative data collected over five months in 2010 and 2011 through observation and semi-structured, face-to-face interviews in four towns and villages (two urban and two rural) in southern Ghana. Of the four research sites, one urban and one rural area each had a hospital with an HIV unit where I could observe and interview HIV/AIDS patients, health personnel, and HIV counsellors on mobile phone use for healthcare communication. Most of the interview sessions lasted from 30 minutes to two hours, while conversations were only a few minutes. I interacted with 101 respondents, consisting of 49 women and 52 men ranging in age from 15 to 81, mostly students, nurses, teachers, and traders. I interviewed mobile phone users and non-users alike; out of the 101 respondents, 90 had mobile phones while 11 did not have one at the time of my study. Additionally, 72 survey questionnaires (completed by 42 men and 30 women) were administered to gain a broader picture of mobile phone usage. The four research sites were selected so that the study would incorporate data from different social environments in Ghana and thus ensure that the data were as representative as possible of the situation. The amount of data collected is significant but for the purposes of this chapter, only parts of the material, mostly data derived from conversational interviews, will inform the empirical section and the ensuing analysis. Overall, most of the people in my sample did not own a mobile phone. To ground this statement numerically, my findings from a list of 584 patients on anti-retroviral drugs at an urban hospital in Ghana with an HIV unit showed that only 150 (25.8 per cent) of them used mobile telephones (table 3). At a rural hospital, of the 170 female HIV/AIDS patients listed, only 45 (26.5 per cent) had mobile phones, 123 (72.4 per cent) did not have phones, and two (1.1 per cent) did not provide this information. 3 It was not possible to know from the list if the individuals who did not have phones had access to one. I got information on access to phones through interviews and conversations with counsellors, patients, and other respondents in the communities.

3

The hospital’s list of male patients was not yet fully compiled at the time of my fieldwork.

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Table 3 Mobile phone users among HIV patients on anti-retroviral therapy (N= 584). Males

148

Females

436

Total according to gender

584

Employed

525

Unemployed

63

Total according to employment

584

Have mobile phones

150

No mobile phones

434

Total according to phone ownership

584

Over 40 years

254

Under 40 years

330

Total according to age

584

Generally, participation in phone communication is enhanced as even persons who have minimum or no formal education can use phones (figure 3 below). The majority of the 90 phone users (out of the 101 respondents I interacted with) had formal education: 41 respondents, or 45.5 per cent, had a junior high school level education or lower; 13 (14.4 per cent) were senior high school graduates; 27 (30 per cent) had had tertiary education (university and other professional level) and one respondent would not state his education level. However, eight phone users (nearly 10 per cent) were non-literate – with no formal education at all, they participated nonetheless in mobile phone communication; nine other non-literates did not have mobile phones but planned to own one, or dreamed about owning one (Crentsil, 2013a). The discussion here follows other studies that show how mobile phones ensure participation; when a powerful medium is appropriated and domesticated, different forms of mediation become a part of local culture. Participation is demonstrated in the study by Horst and Miller (2005), which revealed social aspects of mobile phone communication in kinship and social relations in Jamaica, and, similarly, in the discussion by Hahn and Kibora (2008) on the domestication of mobile phones and the impact on oral and social relational aspects of life in Burkina Faso. The two

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studies use the domestication of technology paradigm, which is useful in analysing mobile phone participation. The paradigm makes it possible to grasp how society shapes technology and conversely how technologies can affect society (Tenhunen, 2008: 516). I also explored the association of phones with sexual behaviour which, while increasing people’s participation, could also raise the user’s risk of contracting HIV. Research on negative use of mobile telephones includes the study by de Souza e Silva et al. (2011) of mobile telephone appropriation in the favelas (slums) of Brazil and the practice of directão. 4 In Mozambique, Archambault (2011) examined ambiguous experiences with and discourses of mobile phones and mobile communication. The study shows the ambivalent nature of mobile phones – as ensuring participation but also producing instances of conflict and break-ups in relationships.

The HIV/AIDS Scene in Ghana Ghana recorded its first HIV/AIDS case in 1986 among sex workers who had returned from a sojourn in neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire. The country’s current prevalence rate of about 1.4 per cent is not as grave as in other African countries. Sub-Saharan Africa bears the brunt of the epidemic and is home to about 67 per cent of the 33 million people infected with the virus globally. In 2009 the region accounted for 68 per cent of the 2.7 million new infections among adults worldwide (UNAIDS, 2012). The major mode of HIV transmission in Ghana, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, is heterosexual contact. The rate of HIV in women aged 20 to 29 is higher than in men of the same age group in Ghana. HIV/AIDS remains a stigmatised illness in Ghana and is seen as a social problem resulting from sexual (mis)behaviour, especially in religious contexts; hence secrecy, denial and shame usually surround those with the disease (Radstake, 1997; Crentsil, 2007). The epidemic is also stretching Ghana’s yearly health budget and forcing an over-reliance on foreign financial aid. In 2005 alone, the purchase of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) and medications for opportunistic infections cost over 8 million US dollars, which came from foreign donors (Crentsil, 2007). Educational campaigns about HIV/AIDS emphasise prevention; those already infected 4 Directão is a practice in Brazil whereby a phone illegally supplied by service provider employees with a special SIM card allows the user to call anyone in the world for three months at no cost; drug traffickers in prison use this mechanism to stay in touch with the outside world and continue managing gang affairs (de Souza e Silva et al., 2011:8).

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receive counselling and therapy with imported ARVs given mainly in hospitals to patients at a reduced cost. Most HIV- prevention programmes have been built on a paradigm of individual behaviour change; people are advised to lead healthy sexual lifestyles by practising ‘safe’ sex, grounded in the widely known ABC method— abstain from sex, be mutually faithful to partners or use condoms consistently. The most at-risk groups are identified to be sex workers, long-distance vehicle drivers and the youth. Hence, many of the HIV activities target these groups. Despite a recent decline in incidence, HIV/AIDS remains a serious threat, and new infections are occurring in Ghana. Biomedical services in the sense of hospital care are severely limited, with considerable lapses in the provision of health care – inadequate medicines, shortage of health workers and unavailable services in rural areas in Ghana (Bonsi, 2000; Crentsil, 2007). NGOs, community-based organisations (CBOs), faith-based organisations (FBOs), the churches and other civil society organisations help with community outreach campaigns (Crentsil, 2007). AIDS patients and the HIV-positive usually rely on either face-to-face communication with their doctor and HIV counsellor at the hospital, commonly known as self-report (Haberer et al., 2010), or on home-based visits by counsellors for key health information. These go alongside the countrywide, media-driven education and awareness campaign disseminating information via radio, television, posters, etc. Most HIV/AIDS patients live in rural areas and must travel to hospitals for counselling. One problem acknowledged by researchers and stakeholders in the HIV/AIDS sector is that for many HIV-positive people, AIDS patients, and others affected by the disease, there is an unmet need for information on structures of support (De Tolly and Alexander, 2009:1). With mobile phones, patients can now call health experts for information concerning their status without having to travel. HIV/AIDS responses everywhere emphasise universal access to treatment and vigorous preventive measures through counselling and education. Agencies involved in HIV-prevention strategies in Africa have made considerable use of the mass media as conveyors of information, education and communication (IE&C) and in social networking campaigns to disseminate information about HIV/AIDS, reduce misinformation and induce behavioural changes against risks of infection (Benefo, 2004: 2). Radio, television/cinema, newspapers, billboards, and posters as forms of mass media exposure and education have been the most important predictors of awareness and behaviour change.

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Mobile Phone Mediation and Participation in the HIV/AIDS Sector in Ghana Mobile phones are being appropriated and adapted in cultural and social processes through user negotiations. Fuelled by Ghana’s deregulation of the telephone market in 1994 (Overå, 2006), an exponential growth in mobile phone use, with a penetration of 100 per 100 inhabitants in 2012 and more than 27 million subscribers in a population of 25.3 million, enhances participation in social spheres and development, including health. This participation is also made possible due to the ability of users to purchase phones (and many people have two or three phones in order to reach contacts on different networks) and because the devices are common gifts from relatives and friends abroad. Moreover, a low-cost use is offered through mostly pre-paid cards (in 2010 the cheapest card was one Ghana cedi – the equivalent of 50 US cents). Mobile phones are seen as aiding HIV treatment and prevention initiatives, and improving the capacity of health systems in African countries (Lemaire, 2011: 10). Voice calls and SMS (Short Messaging Service, or text messaging) especially facilitate outreach and awareness programmes, access to treatment, and support for people living with HIV. As in Kenya (Lester, Gelmon and Plumer, 2006), patients in Ghana communicate about health through mobile phones, and some of those I interacted with told me they would be comfortable receiving HIV-related information from health personnel by phone. Listening to calls can be accomplished silently if the phone’s loudspeaker is not on and text messages can be read privately. Mobile phones are used to monitor and remind patients to take their medication and for counselling. Hence, the mobile phone has become an important interface for health and communication, two important sectors dealing with HIV. This also raises questions about the HIV communicative ecology 5 in Ghana. It is better to consider the specific communicative ecology related to HIV in the country in order to understand mobile phone communication in HIV/AIDS measures in Ghana and the reasons or factors for partial participation.

5

Communicative ecology can be defined as the dynamics between human communication and the effective environment, and is primarily understood as the link between human communicative processes, structures and meanings, social networks, and communication technology (Foth and Hearn, 2007). People interact with others through communicative structures that are mediated, informational, situational, and contextual in their respective environments (Matthias, 2011:31).

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The previous reliance on only face-to-face communication with doctors at the hospital and home-based visits to AIDS patients’ homes by HIV counsellors, as well as the inability of patients from rural areas to attend hospitals frequently has been remedied thanks to mobile phone use (Crentsil, 2013b). Mobile phone participation relieves the anxiety of not knowing and being left out (Murphy and Priebe, 2011). Both counsellors and patients mentioned the immense benefits of using phones, which also points to an enhanced participation. Mobile phones enable appointment dates to be scheduled, and rescheduled, in order to ensure people attend counselling and treatment sessions, and allow health workers to know patients’ clinical health and conditions at any time. Patients’ adherence to medication can be monitored through reminders, and those who do not attend counselling can be tracked down in order to reduce absenteeism. The counsellors like to use phones because they consider communication by phone as faster, more time efficient, cheaper and safer, as they reduce the risk of travelling to visit patients at home. Everyday time and space are thus transformed. Patients told me that mobile phones reduced transportation costs and the risk of travelling to hospitals only to be sent back with no treatment or help. This is highly relevant for AIDS patients since many of them in the advanced stages of the disease also become weak and have little strength to travel. Mobile phones appeared to have empowered many patients to communicate easily about their statuses – to discuss their immune load (CD4 count) and ask, among other things, about their next counselling date, treatment regimens, etc. During one of my visits to a hospital in southern Ghana, an HIV counsellor received a call on his mobile phone from an HIV-positive person. I reproduce below only what the HIV counsellor (H. C.) said as I could not hear what the caller was saying. Caller……… H. C.: Hello… Oh, hi. Yes, today is counselling day. Caller………. H. C.: You are not coming…Oh, you want to know if you need to come today? Caller………. H.C.: OK, what was your CD4 load count from the last session [two weeks ago]? Caller………. H.C.: OK, that is quite good. Do you still have some medication?

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Caller………. H.C.: OK, if the CD4 is above 380 and you still have some of the medication from the last supply, then you don’t need to travel all the way to this place. Caller………. H.C.: OK, thank you too and see you at the next session. Bye-bye.

When he had finished talking with the patient, the counsellor turned to me and said: “Do you see what I was just telling you about? Mobile phones help us to communicate easily with the clients on key information about their health.” The flexibility of using phones in very private ways with a high degree of anonymity and having access to sensitive information, the assurance of secrecy, and freedom from intrusion by others are undoubtedly appealing for communication about the disease and as a way of avoiding the stigmatisation often associated with being HIV-positive in Ghana. There is the potential to ensure wider participation, however. Acknowledging the immense benefits of mobile phones, many patients who had phones expressed the hope that their colleagues without phones would soon get access to one and that it would be beneficial for patients and others in society to have access to channels of communication, especially mobile phones and computers, for information on HIV/AIDS. Those who did not have phones dreamed of possessing one. Patients felt that mobile phones prevent the public from learning about their condition and thus they felt less ashamed. The device can help patients avoid stigma and shame and also ensure participation. Another factor ensuring participation is phone sharing and renting arrangements. HIV does not change the habit of phone sharing –people remain generous in sharing phones and this practice is also prevalent among HIV patients. Patients without phones can rely on friends and relatives to make calls on their behalf, and those who cannot arrange to share with relatives or friends can easily rent a phone from roadside operators in kiosks, booths, or under trees and large umbrellas. Phone sharing is common in many parts of Africa (e.g., Burrell, 2010 in Uganda; Blumenstock and Eagle, 2012 in Rwanda). In my study in Ghana, 75 per cent of respondents in the 72 completed questionnaires indicated that they shared their phones with family members, while 58.3 per cent shared with friends. Phone sharing raises the number of people with physical access to a mobile phone significantly, despite differences in phone access due to gender, poverty and inequality issues (Scott, McKemyey, and Batchelor,

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2004). Such arrangements also generate social ties that entail broader benefits and access beyond merely the financial (Burrell, 2010: 237).

Factors for Partial Participation A number of factors hinder full participation and result in partial participation for patients however; these include non-ownership, nonaccess to mobile phone use, family, gender, education, and other factors in social, cultural, economic, and technical or organisational contexts. Nonaccess to phones is a key challenge and results in partial participation (recall the 584 HIV-positive patients mentioned earlier who may have access to a phone but do not necessarily own one). Mobile phone usage also indicates that the degree or level of use is determined by one’s level of education. This suggests that degrees of literacy can be identified in mobile use, even for users who have not been exposed to formal education (for specific focus on this topic, see in this volume Zouinar & Ndiaye). In my study, the most basic functions of mobile phones are usually easily accessed by non-literate persons. They are able to perform the basic functions of answering and ending the call after they have finished speaking (see also Zouinar & Ndiaye, 2014 and in this volume). They can usually also receive help in punching in numbers to make calls when it is necessary. For example, two non-literate elderly women, both aged approximately 80 years old, told me they received assistance from their grandchildren or even youngsters in the vicinity to punch in numbers to make a call. However, in relation to general phone usage, there will be partial participation when non-literate users are unable to use programmes in the phone such as reading or sending SMS messages (or replying to a caller in the English language). This is an important point. Language and literacy barriers can have an impact on the full participation of HIV-positive people because notions of privacy and individual expression are severely compromised (see Crowe, in this volume for an extensive discussion on privacy) when communicating through technology that requires proxy participation. Although I did not personally interact with patients who needed help using their phones in my sample, the HIV counsellors told me that many patients received such levels of help when using their mobile phones. Calling costs are another major constraint for both HIV counsellors and patients (Crentsil, 2013a). Although most of the patients in Table 3 were employed, poverty is widespread in rural areas where people have meagre resources, as is the case for farmers and petty traders. Hence, some patients avoid phone costs by “flashing” (generating missed calls), leaving

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the HIV counsellor to bear the cost of the call. The counsellors did not seem to mind being forced to bear the costs for calling patients but this practice may not be the best for ensuring full or wide-scale participation. Figure 3: Educational background of mobile phone users in this study

Finally, partial participation may be the result of the need for privacy and confidentiality. In regions like Ghana where one's health condition can result in being stigmatised, phone sharing, while useful in providing vital information such as when to change one's medical cocktail or when to seek medical help, can simultaneously disempower the sick individual. Since the privacy of HIV-positive persons and AIDS patients who might want to keep their statuses private can be compromised as messages can be read by others, there are refusals and the reluctance of equally as many phone owners (in relation to those who willingly share their phones as discussed earlier) to share their phones due to secrets and privacy. Consequently, confidentiality issues should be of the utmost importance in any strategy using mobile telephones in healthcare (Lester, Gelmon and Plumer, 2006; see also Crowe, in this volume) and could be the cause of partial participation by patients.

Family/Friends, Sharing and Participation Mobile phones are important in social relationships and kinship networks to help maintain links with family, friends, neighbours, business customers, and health personnel (Crentsil, 2014), as figure 4 below shows.

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Family and friends play an important role in enhancing participation when phones are given as gifts or are shared with relatives for making or receiving calls. As the anthology by Ling and Campbell (2009) shows, people share mobile phones not necessarily out of economic issues but also because of family and interpersonal dynamics. Phone sharing is also prevalent among HIV patients, and many make calls on behalf of fellow patients or allow them to use their phones, according to the HIV counsellors. People remain generous in sharing phones although the privacy of HIV-positive patients who might want to keep their statuses private can be compromised. Consequently, there are sometimes refusals or reluctance by many phone owners to share their phones, which can potentially cause partial participation. Figure 4: Communication with significant others (Crentsil, 2014).

Partial participation or the shortcomings of full participation in development are often blamed on government structures, institutions and even donor agencies. Seldom are individual choices of the target group themselves taken into consideration. According to my data, most users make more calls to family, friends and neighbours or customers than to health personnel, thus creating partial communication in the health setting. This is also a clear trend in other M4D initiatives where the financial implication of using the phone in regard to development initiatives remains a barrier. The most marginalised will not pay for information

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services when the choice and struggle to spend their limited funds on services that are bettering their lives is a permanent one. Hence this factor and the practice of flashing are clear indications of partial participation in these HIV drives.

The Gender of Participation Women participate in mobile phone communication and seem to benefit immensely from the possibility of keeping their statuses private. For example, I was told about an HIV-positive married woman who gave her mobile phone number to the HIV counsellor at the hospital where she was an outpatient with strict instructions that she should be contacted directly when she failed to attend counselling sessions and collect her medication. It was obvious that the cost of the call would have to be borne by the counsellor and yet the patient insisted on being called on the phone rather than being visited at home. If her mother-in-law learned of her HIVpositive status, she feared it would lead to a divorce from her husband. The counsellor told me there had not yet been an occasion to call that patient; however, should the situation arise, there would be no option for her but to adhere to the patient’s wishes. More men are likely to participate in mobile phone use than women due to differences in access to income and education, as most of the women were found in the low-income level as traders, farmers and students. The space surrounding men’s participation could be widened since this study found that men usually buy their own phones. In contrast, while many women also have their own phones, their participation can only be widened in so far as they can rely on the magnanimity of others who buy them phones. A number of women received their phones as gifts from family members and friends, and women without phones could share or borrow from family and friends. Gender identity is a way to classify particular domains of action by men and women (Armstrong, 1999: 12). In African societies normative assumptions usually categorise men as breadwinners while women are expected to care for the family. Gillwald, Milek and Stork (2010) point out that many of the barriers for women relate to cultural norms and practices that would be difficult to address with government legislation. Despite changes, patriarchal structures and stereotyped notions of gender roles and relations abound in Ghana and other parts of Africa (Silberschmidt, 2001: 657). Girls’ reliance on rich, older male lovers for money and material gifts is a widely known phenomenon in Ghana, and most women of low financial standing usually rely on male partners (husbands and boyfriends) to secure them phones.

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For example, a 40-year-old HIV-positive woman proudly told me in an interview that her phone was bought by her late husband, a long-distance driver, which enabled her to communicate regularly with him. However, the woman trader later suspected he was the one who had infected her with HIV since he had had relationships with several women, which his wife only learned about when he tested HIV-positive. Yet, many female HIV-positive persons and AIDS patients do not have phones and hence partial participation occurs more among such women than among men. For example, an HIV-positive woman travelled all the way from her village, about 50 kilometres away, to the hospital where she was an outpatient and received counselling and medicines only to learn that the herbal medicine she was taking, in addition to the hospital drugs boosting her immune system, was not available at that point. The story was told to me by another HIV-positive female patient who expressed regret that if only her fellow patient had a mobile phone, she would not have wasted time and energy travelling all the way to the hospital; the poor patient would have known that there was no herbal medicine available at that time with a simple phone call.

Sex, Ambivalence of Mobile Phones, and Participation The gifting of mobile phones would, all things being equal, enhance widespread participation. However, gifting, which Burrell (2010: 237) refers to as a subclass of the broader sharing practices, is another challenge when it involves acquiring mobile phones through sex since it raises the risk of HIV infection. Gifting is the involuntary transfer of ownership from the purchaser to another without an immediate and equivalent financial transfer in return that would dissolve the social tie between the giver and receiver. As in Uganda (ibid), mobile phones are used as a ‘lure’ for sexual relationships; young women and girls exchange sex for mobile phones, and men use the devices to lure women into sexual relationships. This must be understood in the context of the Ghanaian practice of giving gifts in exchange for sex (Bochow, 2012), a context in which a woman having a sexual relationship with men for economic gain is seen as a necessary evil. We need to bear in mind the ways in which mobile phones are linked with sexual exchange relationships. A young woman’s possession of a phone is usually associated with her sexual status and disreputable behaviour (Sey, 2011). This is apparent in the following interaction I witnessed one day:

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A 45-year-old seamstress observed a teenage girl talking on a mobile phone. When the girl had finished the phone conversation, she turned to her three friends. Suspecting that the girl was telling her friends about a male lover who had just called her, the seamstress commented with disapproval: “From where would a young girl get the money to buy a phone? It surely comes from a man in exchange for sex. Oh, modern-day Ghana…May God Himself forgive us for such immorality.”

Furthermore, while mobile phone use can increase trust in marital relationships, there is also a danger that it can conceal a range of sexual contacts, as found in Mozambique by Archambault (2011) and in Tanzania by Stark (2013). Given the low and inconsistent condom use in Ghana, we need to worry about how what I term ‘sex-for-mobiles’ could increase participation and at the same time threaten HIV-prevention efforts. Moreover, the very idea of associating mobile phones with sex and especially women’s sexual ‘misbehaviour’ may prove costly since women might refuse even genuine offers because they would be seen as disreputable, hence reducing the space surrounding women’s participation. This is more likely when reports are abounding about men having sex with young women and recording the act on mobile phones and circulating it among friends, which has led to suspicions that such men are part of the growing pornographic industry in Ghana and abroad (see ECPAT International Report, 2008). 6 In summary, as the devices are ambivalently associated with sex and sexual misbehaviour, although they widen participation in HIV/AIDS initiatives, they are not seen as “neutral” devices. These negative aspects of phones could cause partial participation.

Organisational/Institutional Level: Technological Resources and Participation There are some organisational or technological constraints that might potentially result in partial participation. The underlying infrastructure – although not nearly as limited or expensive to deploy as some other ICTs such as fixed line telephony or cable Internet – is not always universal. As in South Africa (Phippard, 2012), patchy network coverage, service fluctuations, bandwidth limitations, and otherwise unreliable connectivity invariably constrain mHealth interventions, especially in the most rural or 6

ECPAT is the acronym for End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Practices.

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remote areas. It also seems that many phone-based health communication, information, and developmental services are consigned to be small-scale pilot projects only as long as they are funded by international organisations (Tenhunen, 2013:5). Furthermore, the process of using mobile phones in HIV initiatives in Ghana did not seem to be systematically organised, and policy infrastructure coordinating and guiding the sustainable adoption of mHealth services was underdeveloped during my study. The financing of mHealth at both individual and institutional levels is another challenge since there seemed to be no funding system in place during my study. As mentioned earlier, the HIV counsellors did not seem to mind being forced to bear the costs for calling patients but rather felt obligated to do so. They saw mobile phone communication as a better option than visiting patients in their homes for counselling because although hospitals provide for transportation costs, logistic problems such as securing a vehicle and fuel for the journey abound (Crentsil, 2007). Still, counsellors calling patients and bearing phone costs may possibly result in partial participation since they may be forced by lack of funds to shorten the conversation.

Conclusion, Discussion and Some Recommendations Successful large-scale mHealth systems to enhance participation will require investment by African states, NGOs, and private companies. Mobile industries can push for mHealth improvements only after research has evidence of the perceived advantages. There is a need for a partnership between mobile technology companies and international funders and/ or government institutions (Lemaire, 2011). Governments need to consider how to address electricity and energy issues, and patients' willingness to pay for inexpensive periodic text messages is worth exploring (Thirumurthy and Lester, 2012) in terms of widening participation. MHealth robustness would be evident in its ability to reliably scale up despite variability in quality and coverage of wireless communication networks and limited access to stable power supply (Sanner, Rowland and Braa, 2012: 156). There is a need for mobile phone service providers to improve the quality of their networks. That many users try to stay connected by finding places with better network coverage or using car batteries to recharge their phone batteries shows how ubiquitous the device is, and how mobile phone companies can capitalise on that to deliver better services for profits through wider participation by end-users. Currently, there is partial participation in mobile telephone communication for HIV/AIDS initiatives in Ghana, so there is room to

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amplify existing structures and blur cultural boundaries by creating spaces for agency and critical discourses (Tenhunen, 2013:9). The same technology can empower women, especially HIV-positive ones, as well as amplify gender disparities and vulnerabilities. There is on-going talk and optimism about mHealth in HIV/AIDS initiatives but the very policy infrastructure for funding, coordination and guiding the sustainable adoption of mHealth services needs to be developed if full or widespread participation is to be achieved. Implementation and problems at the institutional, societal, and individual levels – lack of logistics, poverty and other socioeconomic crises, association with increased sexual relations and risks of HIV infections, etc. – must be addressed. Overall, there is need to examine benefits but it is also pertinent to give greater attention to challenges to mHealth initiatives in order to understand the interplay between the context and factors promoting the programmes and those that hinder them. When conceptualising participatory mHealth, it matters who defines and sets the agenda for participation. As argued by Cornwall (2004), the spaces that can be emptied and then filled as per participation are affected (if not dictated) by individual and institutional capability or incapability. Patients’ access or non-access to phones as well as their financial status in a global economy, unpredictable state policies and programmes may result either in wider or narrowed participation. At the same time, institutional policy formulation, regulation, policy implementation and enforcement undoubtedly have an effect on people’s ability or inability to engage fully in activities such as participating in mobile phone health communication.

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Han, Chenxing. “South African Perspectives on Mobile Phones: Challenging the Optimistic Narrative of Mobiles for Development.” International Journal of Communication 6 (1), 2012: 2057–81. Horst, Heather, and Daniel Miller. “From Kinship to Link-up: Call Phones and Social Networking in Jamaica.” Current Anthropology 46 (5), 2005: 755–78. Lamparianou, Iasonas. “Contemporary Political Participation Research: A Critical Assessment.” In Democracy in Transition, edited by K. N. Demetriou, 21–42. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2013. Lemaire, Jeaninne. “Mobile Health: Elements Necessary for the Successful Scale up of m-Health in Developing Countries.” White Paper for the Advanced Development for Africa, 2011. Lester, Richard T., Lawrence Gelmon, and Francis A. Plumer. “Cell Phones: Tightening the Communication Gap in Resource-limited Antiretroviral Programmes?” AIDS 20 (17), 2006: 2242–44. Leon, Natalie, Helen Schneider, and Emmanuelle Daviaud. “Applying a Framework for Assessing the Health Systems Challenges to Scaling Up m-Health in South Africa.” BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 12, 2012:123. doi: 10.1186/1472-6947/12/123. Ling, Richard, and Scott Campbell. The Reconstruction of Space and Time: Mobile Communication Practices. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, 2009. Maier-Rabler, Ursula, and Stefan Huber. “Sustainable E-Participation through Participatory Experiences in Education.” JeDem 2 (2), 2010: 131–144. Matthias, Nakia M. Assessing the Communicative Ecology of Male Refugees in Namibia: A Study to Guide Health Communication Interventions on Multiple and Concurrent Sexual Partnerships. Master’s thesis, University of Ohio, USA, 2011. Michener, Victoria J. “The Participatory Approach: Contradiction and Cooption in Burkina Faso.” World Development 26 (12), 1998: 2105– 2118. Mohan, Giles, and Kristian Stokke. “Participatory Development and Empowerment: The Dangers of Localism.” Third World Quarterly 21 (2), 2000: 247–268. Muller, Edward N., Mitchell A. Seligson, and Ilter Turan. “Education, Participation, and Support for Democratic Norms.” Comparative Politics 20 (1), 1987: 19–33. Murphy, Laura L., and Alexandra E. Priebe. “‘My Co-wife Can Borrow my Mobile Phone!’: Gendered Geographies of Cell Phone Usage and

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Significance of Rural Kenyans.” Gender Technology and Development 15 (1), 2011: 1–23. Nimako, Simon G, Foresight K. Azumah, Francis Donkor, and Veronica Adu-Brobbey. “Overall Customer Satisfaction in Ghana’s Mobile Telecommunication Networks: Implications for Management and Policy.” ATDF Journal 7 (3/4), 2010: 35–49. Olsson, Tobias. “From the Ecology of Broadcasting to the Ecology of Participation.” Paper presented at NordMedia09, Karlstad, August 1315, 2009 Overå, Reghinald. “Networks, Distance, and Trust: Telecommunications Development and Changing Trading Practices in Ghana.” World Development 34 (7), 2006: 1301–15. Parfitt, Trevor. “The Ambiguity of Participation: A Qualified Defence of Participatory Development.” Third World Quarterly 25 (3), 2004: 537– 555. Phippard, Trisha M. The (M)Health Connection: An Examination of the Promise of Mobile Phones for HIV/AIDS Intervention in sub-Saharan Africa. Master thesis, University of Western Ontario, Canada, 2012. Radstake, Maud. Secrecy and Ambiguity: Home Care for People Living with HIV/AIDS in Ghana. Leiden: African Studies Centre, 1997. Research Report 59/2000. Sanner, Terje A., Lars K. Roland and Kristin Braa. “From Pilot to Scale: Towards an mHealth Typology for Low-resource Contexts.” Health Policy and Technology 1, 2012: 155–164. Scott, Nigel, Kevin McKemyey, and Simon J. Batchelor. “The Use of Telephones amongst the Poor in Africa: Some Gender Implications.” Gender Technology and Development 8 (2), 2004: 182–207. Sey, Araba. “New Media Practices in Ghana.” International Journal of Communications 5 (1), 2011: 380–405. Silberschmidt, M. “Disempowerment of Men in Rural and Urban East Africa: Implications for Male Identity and Sexual Behaviour.” World Development 29 (4), 2001: 657–671. Stark, Laura. “Transactional Sex and Mobile Phones in a Tanzanian Slum.” Suomem Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 38 (1), 2013: 12–36. Swerissen, Hal, and Berth R. Crisp. “The Sustainability of Health Promotion Interventions for Different Levels of Social Organisation.” Health Promotion International 19 (1), 2004: 123–130. Tenhunen, Sirpa. “Mobile Technology in the Village: ICTs, Culture, and Social Logistics in India.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N. S.) 14 (3), 2008: 515–34.

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CHAPTER FIVE THE POLITICS OF MOBILE MEDIA INCLUSION IN ARGENTINA SARAH WAGNER 1

Mobile telephony is providing new opportunities to create digital content and engage in media production, potentially providing marginalised people with a voice. However, the manner in which mobile technologies enable political participation is shaped by the affordances of mobile services. In this chapter, we conceptualise digital inclusion in terms of participation and explore the ways in which marginalised groups are included or excluded in mobile media services. We analyse the position of two stakeholder groups in Argentina: indigenous communicators and mobile app developers. We find that the mobile app industry doubly excludes indigenous participation. App developers are not only disconnected from the interests of local users due to standardised distribution platforms that do not favour local markets, but they are also positioned within a wider social structure that invisibilises and discriminates against indigenous peoples. An integral part of the decolonisation of communication media will be the local ownership of media channels and platforms. We argue that the M4D research area needs to consider how spaces can be created for marginalised groups to participate in mobile service production and planning processes.

Introduction Mobile Communication for Development studies (M4D) have accounted for the positive influences of mobile telephony in numerous contexts, from enabling new business opportunities to supporting health care development 1

Sarah Wagner ([email protected]) is PhD Fellow in the Mobile Technologies and (G)local Challenges research group at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute of the Open University of Catalonia, Spain.

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(Donner, 2008; Kumar and Svensson, 2012). Likewise, there has been a great deal of interest in expanding mobile networks and services to underserved communities. However, inclusion in mobile telephony services is not simply about reducing access-and-use barriers. There is another important sense of digital inclusion relating to quality of use and the local relevance of communication technologies: participation in planning and production. This does not necessarily mean that users actually partake in the production of mobile handsets, but rather that they influence the types of mobile services and contents that are available in their regions. As Science and Technology Studies have long pointed out, technologies are socially shaped through networks of users, non-users, innovators and planners (Kling, 2001). Given that not all social groups are equally involved or represented in production processes, the spread of mobile telephony services involves power struggles over network planning, software design and content production. Rather than assuming that increased access to mobile telephony is beneficial, in this chapter we explore the politics of mobile inclusion, keeping in mind that new communication technologies are not always welcomed and may go against local cultural goals (Rodríguez and El Gazi, 2007). As mobile phones are now widely used to produce, exchange and process digitised information as well as access the Internet, the power structures behind software and content production become increasingly relevant. In recent years, mobile platform providers, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, in particular, have the power in the mobile service ecosystem, having control over the underlying software and the diffusion of mobile contents (Basole and Karla, 2012). While platform provision is dominated by these two companies based in the United States (IDC 2013), the majority (78%) of mobile subscriptions in raw numbers are in developing regions (ITU, 2014). With the spread of 3G networks and smartphones, marginalised groups are gaining new opportunities to develop their own media and distribute them to a potentially global audience over the Internet (Castells, 2009). However, the manner in which mobile technologies enable political participation is in part shaped by the “affordances” (Gibson, 1977:67) of mobile services, and thus by who participates in or has influence on production and planning. The structure of the mobile service system presents a problem for M4D research where mobile platforms and contents produced by multinational corporations may create contexts of cultural subjugation in developing world localities. The flow of mobile media, software and contents from developed world corporations to developing world users is all too familiar to the colonial model of technology dissemination. Before assuming that

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‘participation’ is the answer to this asymmetry in technology production, it is important to consider some lessons learnt on the concept of participation from development studies. Already in the 1970s, development agencies and practitioners began to consider the importance of local participation for the successful implementation of interventions: beneficiaries, as well as anthropologists, were involved in the implementation of projects. Yet, the structure of much development practice continues to be rooted in a colonial mind-set: the locus of knowledge and expertise resides with the donor organisation that defines the “problems” faced by beneficiaries (Escobar, 1991). A major issue for participatory approaches turned out to be the concept of participation itself. Donor organisations develop the structure of the project, including the way in which beneficiaries participate, and in doing so override the local decision-making processes (Cooke and Kothari, 2001). Far from shifting the locus of powerknowledge-expertise to the local level, participatory development quickly became a buzzword used to justify any top-down intervention (Cornwall and Brock, 2005). The fact that ‘participation’ lost its political force within development studies is partly due to an ambiguity in the term. As Parfitt points out, participation can be understood in terms of the “means” or “ends.” In the former case, beneficiaries may be included in the implementation phase of the project, but they have little influence on the overall targets. The latter form of participation is more substantive. It implies influence in the structure of the intervention itself, the underlying goals and vision of the project. As Parfitt puts it, “Whereas participation as a means is politically neutral… participation as an end has an emancipatory, politically radical component in that it seeks to redress unequal power relations” (Parfitt, 2004:539). The relevant import of this discussion for mobile media production relates to the manner in which users participate. Mobile phones are often assumed to bring empowerment by enabling faster and easier communication as well as participation in media production. Users can create and transmit their own audiovisual contents using web 2.0 apps. However, in many cases, they do not have influence on the structure of the app, or the manner in which they share contents. As for many participatory development projects, the very nature of participation itself may already be set, in this case, dependent on the affordances of the sharing platform. This chapter conceptualises mobile media inclusion in terms of participation and explores the ways in which mobile media services include or exclude marginalised user groups. The focus is on Argentina, a postcolonial, upper middle-income country (by OECD classification), with the highest mobile telephony penetration rate in South America at 152

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subscriptions per 100 habitants (ITU, 2013). While mobile media services comprise multiple levels of influence including mobile users, regulators, platform providers and developers, we hone in on two stakeholder groups: mobile app developers and indigenous communicators. Where indigenous peoples in Argentina have declared their right to communication with identity (el derecho a la comunicación con identidad) and are vying for control over media production, we explore what is involved in the decolonisation of mobile media and its implications for mobile media services. On the other side of the polemic, we consider the targets and activities of mobile app developers, drawing out the social, economic and political conditions that connect or disconnect developers and the interests of local user groups. As we will see, indigenous communicators are in a sense doubly excluded from the mobile app industry, which is focused on an international, commercial market and implicated within a wider social structure that “invisibilises” (Gordillo and Hirsch, 2003: 5) indigenous existence. In this chapter, we begin by providing background on mobile media inclusion, with particular focus on the mobile service context in Argentina as well as the thorny issues relating to the political economy of content production. Following that, we present the two case studies: first, research on mobile app developers, and second, research on indigenous communicators. Finally, we analyse the two case studies as a whole in the conclusion, developing an analysis of mobile media inclusion as the creation of spaces through which user groups can influence the structure of mobile platforms and their contents.

Framing Mobile Media Inclusion Digital inclusion talk is prevalent in a wide variety of policy and development contexts and encompasses issues in the accessibility of ICTs as well as planning and production. ‘Inclusion’ loosely indicates the ideal, which, rather than being a specific process or action, varies depending on the context of digital exclusion or inequality that has been identified. Initially, digital inequalities were characterised as an access divide; in particular, the disparity between technologies available in developed and developing regions (Selwyn, 2004). However, in 2001, the term ‘digital divide’ was already in dispute and attention was drawn to the inequalities of use amongst those with access (DiMaggio and Hargittai, 2001). While mobile phone subscriptions reached 90 per 100 habitants in developing regions in 2014 (ITU), mobile inclusion studies have drawn attention to a number of factors that restrict phone use, including the affordability of

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basic services (Sey, 2010; Galperin and Mariscal, 2007) and digital illiteracy (Mater O’Neill and Asseo, 2013). A decade ago, when digital inclusion studies tended to conflate access with use, it was important to distinguish clearly between the two (Selwyn, 2004). However, as characterisations of access have broadened beyond infrastructure to consider affordability or digital illiteracy, an analysis of use patterns is often presupposed in an analysis of access. Likewise, a pertinent distinction for digital inclusion studies today lies between ‘ability of use’ and ‘local relevance’. Along these lines, some studies have found inequalities in mobile communication relating to the local relevance of the services. For example, French-designed mobile services can cause crosscultural issues for West-African immigrants (Bationo-Tillon, Sangaré, and Ledunois, 2014) and interface languages have been found to reduce quality of use among farmers in Bangladesh (Dey, Newman, and Prendergast, 2011). Multiple stakeholders and organisations have influence on mobile inclusion, including government regulations, commercial services and development aid interventions. Before looking specifically at the role of these stakeholders in shaping mobile media inclusion in Argentina, Table 4 provides an overview of digital inclusion measures and actions for the three main sectors of mobile telephony services. While the focus of this chapter is mobile media, we consider inclusion measures relating to networks, hardware, software and platforms as they all shape the way users access, create and distribute mobile contents. In many cases, digital inclusion measures and actions consider users only as consumers, as those shown in the left hand column of Table 4. Costs are reduced, coverage is expanded or handsets and contents are distributed, all with the aim of enabling users to access and consume these services. On the other hand, the actions and measures presented in the right hand column of Table 4 consider users as producers. In these cases, users are considered as innovators who can contribute to planning processes, participate in hardware production or produce their own mobile contents. A number of companies, start-ups and other organisations have developed apps that enable users to create and share contents. However, potentially a more important inclusion strategy here is capacity building in app development. That is, organisations or other institutions can train users to develop their own apps.

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Table 4 Examples of Mobile Inclusion Measures and Actions Context of exclusion Access / ability of use

Quality / relevance

Network

Government:

Non-profit:

Service

Universal Access Funds (see Barrantes, 2011)

Cooperative owned and managed mobile networks (e.g., Nuestro in Argentina)

(voice and data connection)

Regulations on maximum service fees (e.g., Bolivia’s Law 164) Corporate: Micro-prepayment, per-second billing and calling party pays systems 2 Mobile credit transfer services (e.g., M-Cel in Mozambique)

Hardware (handsets, accessories)

Corporate:

Corporate/non-profit:

Redistribution of used phones (e.g., Suma Project)

Participatory seminars about handset needs for special interest groups (e.g., MInclusion 2012)

Mobile service booths (e.g., Grameen Village Phone) Non-profit/government: Handsets distributed in extension services (e.g., Veeraraghavan, Yasodhar, and Toyama, 2007) Contents

Corporate:

Corporate/Non-profit:

(platforms, apps, multimedia data)

Apps available for purchase with phone credit 3 or cash (e.g., Apps Daily)

Platforms enabling userproduced contents (e.g., Facebook; Ushahidi)

Multimedia content for purchase at mobile shops (Smyth et al., 2010) Non-profit/government:

Free app development training seminars (e.g., Android Open Source Project 2014; iFARO 2013)

Apps developed and distributed as part of development projects 4

2

For analyses of these services in low-income sectors, see Castells, FernándezArdèvol, Qiu, and Sey (2007), Galperin and Mariscal (2007) and Barrantes and Galperin (2008). 3 Google Play offers this service, but only in some developed regions (see Google, 2014b). Some network providers have their own app stores where contents can be purchased with mobile credit, e.g., Movistar in Argentina. 4 See Hellström (2010) for a review of mobile apps for development in East Africa.

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Mobile Inclusion in Argentina Government directives on mobile telephony services in Argentina focus on access and affordability. Argentina’s universal service fund (Decree 558) aims to expand network coverage to underserved areas as well as increase the affordability of services for underserved client groups; network providers must contribute 1 per cent of their annual income to this effect. The Audiovisual Communication Services (SCA) Law of 2010 takes on the general objective of democratising and universalising the use of information and communication technologies. However, ‘audiovisual communication services’ are defined as television and radio broadcasting and the Law does not affect new media or mobile telephony services. While the SCA Law includes regulations that promote the local production of cultural content for television and radio, Argentina’s legislation on software has an opposing interest insofar as it prioritises exportation. There are three mobile network providers in Argentina: Telecom’s Personal, America Movil’s Claro and Telefónica’s Movistar. Telefónica’s corporate responsibility branch espouses interest in digital and social inclusion projects (Telefónica, 2010) and has initiated some projects to this effect in Argentina. Specialised handsets for individuals with disabilities are made available on Movistar’s website (Movistar, 2014a), and between 2007 and 2009, Movistar teamed up with an NGO to distribute recycled handsets to users through the Suma Project in Argentina (Galperin and Molinari, 2011). In addition to the above three network operators, Argentina’s telecommunications cooperative network FECOSUR has initiated the mobile service Nuestro as a virtual network operator. Over 300 telecommunication cooperatives were launched as nonprofit, community-run organisations between 1960 and 1989 when telecommunications were state-owned. Cooperatives have been important in offering affordable rates in low-income areas, and their shareholders have direct influence on the costs and features of their services (Finquelievich and Kisilevsky, 2005). Nuestro offers voice and data services on their virtual network but no additional content-related services. Movistar is the only mobile network operator in Argentina to offer an online store, Movistar Game Store, where users can purchase apps with phone credit. At the time of research, however, this app store did not feature apps by local developers or about Argentinean-related contents. The 66 apps in the store were all provided by three international firms, Electronic Arts, Zed and Gameloft, and featured contents relating to American board games, computer games and films (Movistar, 2014b). Alternative app distribution platforms in other contexts have enabled local

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developers to diffuse apps to excluded user groups within their country. For example, Apps Daily in India is an over-the-counter app store where apps are purchased at retail outlets and installed on-site by technicians. A recent study suggests that this distribution platform is generating the opportunity for developers to create locally-oriented contents and target low-income users (Kathuria and Srivastav, 2014). We are not aware of any alternative app distribution platforms specific to Argentina or any organisations or businesses in Argentina that develop mobile apps in indigenous languages or with indigenous cultural content.

Mobile Media and Participation It is not a new idea that communication media play a central role in political struggles, shaping social change and waging social power (Couldry and Curran, 2003). Carpentier emphasises the need to distinguish between two modes of media participation: Participation “in” the media deals with the participation of nonprofessionals in the production of media output (content-related participation) and in media decision-making (structural participation)… Participation “through” the media deals with the opportunities for extensive participation in public debate and for self-representation in the public spheres. (Carpentier, 2007: 88–9)

Debates over participation “in” media arose at the international level in the late 1970s with concerns about the concentration of media production by multinational corporations headquartered in developed regions. The 1980 UNESCO-commissioned MacBride Report documented the imbalanced and unilateral flow of communication media, setting out principles for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) aiming to democratise and localise media production. While the NWICO principles were never implemented, they fuelled important debates on the top-down structure of media production and the exclusion of developing world populations as well as the empowering potential of alternative and communitarian media (Rodríguez ,2009). In doing so, these debates eked out an important distinction between access to media, or information dissemination, and involvement in media production (Carpentier, 2007). With the advent of the Internet and web 2.0 sharing platforms, the nature of media production and distribution has significantly altered, going from a unilateral broadcasting model to what now can be referred to as an ecology of participation (Olsson, 2010). Mass media and bidirectional

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communication have converged: users can produce their own content and distribute it to a potentially global audience over the Internet (Castells, 2009; Jenkins et al., 2013). On a global scale, the mobile phone is becoming an increasingly important gateway to the Internet, with the number of mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide nearly doubling in the past three years (ITU, 2014). In regions where fixed broadband connections are not available, mobile broadband has been providing an initial access point to the Internet (ITU, 2011), potentially opening up the opportunity for previously excluded communities to participate in the production of Internet content. A fair amount of optimism has been expressed about the democratising potential of peer-to-peer production (Loader and Mercea, 2011): mainstream media has been contested (Moyo, 2007), marginalised groups have attained voice and counter-hegemonic social movements have been facilitated (Castells, 2012). However, the commercial orientation of many online sharing platforms has brought significant critique. While content may be posted from a multitude of sources, site managers are concerned with collecting and selling user profile data rather than the content of user contributions; in effect, the political force of participatory production can be lost through filtering mechanisms that prioritise commercial ends (Fuchs, 2009; Hindman, 2009; Walton and Leukes, 2013). As user Internet traffic increasingly centres on for-profit platforms, such as Facebook or YouTube, the democratising potential of the Internet is reduced (Zittrain, 2008), and the nature of participation itself is set by the vision of multinational corporations. While the Internet was envisioned as a decentralised and participatory sharing platform (Castells 2001), mobile networks have always been proprietary: services and contents are ‘locked in’ with the affordances offered by providers (Gurumurthy, 2009; Goggin, 2011). Google and Apple monopolise smartphone platform provision, holding 93 per cent of the global market share as of mid-2013 (IDC, 2013). In addition, they provide the largest platforms for app distribution, with the Android Play Store and the iOS App Store each accumulating over 50 billion app downloads by 2013 (Statista, 2014). Developers in Argentina can post and sell apps on the websites of the major platform providers, such as the iOS App Store and Android Play Store, and Argentina is one of three countries in Latin America that can register for a Google Merchant Account and sell apps on the Play Store (Google, 2014b). However, this service was set to be suspended in 2013 before Google backtracked on the decision (La Gaceta, 2013). The architecture of these big international app stores supports the popularisation of apps published by large corporations, such

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as Google and Facebook. Five of the top ten app publishers of apps outside of games in 2013 were companies with headquarters in the United States (App Annie, 2014). Users of these two stores in Argentina also tend towards international imports. According to App Annie, in October 2013, the ten most downloaded free Android apps and nine of the ten most downloaded free iOS apps were developed abroad.

Case Study 1: Mobile App Developers In the spring of 2013, I conducted research on Argentinean software and service firms involved in mobile application development. 5 The main aim of the research was to understand the circumstances that shape app developers’ targets, paying particular attention to the manner in which innovation and distribution processes commodify, internationalise or localise developers’ activities. Data was collected from two sources: the content analysis of 36 websites and nine semi-structured interviews with mobile app developers. The analysis of corporate websites has been used to gather information of the activities (e.g., Meroño-cerdan and Sotoacosta, 2005), target audiences (Hwang, Mcmillan, and Lee, 2010) and the social orientation of firms (Snider and Martin, 2003). Mixed-methods research is a well-adopted strategy to increase the validity and richness of the analyses (Greene et al., 1989). In this study, the qualitative interview data provides context and insight into the targets and activities accounted for in the website analysis. To generate a sample of app developers, a list of 107 software and service firms involved in app development was generated through a combination of Internet search engines, online directories and the list of affiliated firms in Argentina’s Chamber of Software and Computing Services. A randomly generated sample of the websites of one third of these businesses (36 in total) was reviewed. Interview requests were sent to the 36 firms included in the website review, nine of which accepted. On the websites, client lists, product lists and service descriptions were reviewed in order to identify the regional target (national, international or combined), client type (non-profit organisations, government organisations, the general public via app stores or companies) and the types of apps developed (marketing, business administration tools, games, educational or social networking). In addition, iOS and Google Play app stores were searched for the number and type of apps published directly by the 5 This research was later expanded into a comparative study with Bolivia (Wagner and Fernández-Ardèvol, 2015).

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reviewed businesses. Interviews were on average 30 minutes in length; participants were asked to describe the activities and target clients of their business as well as reflect on app diffusion methods, the Argentinean app industry, the national and international app market, and the potential of developing apps for marginalised groups such as rural or indigenous communities. The international business market was the most important target for the reviewed firms. The majority (75%) targeted international clients or a combination of international and national clients, while the remaining quarter focused only on the national market. Additionally, most firms (70%) only sold custom apps to businesses or other organisations, which took responsibility for app diffusion. Their focus was typically business clients, where 83 per cent of the sample targeted commercial businesses, such as multinational corporations, marketing firms, restaurants or hotels, and 50 per cent exclusively targeted such businesses. Likewise, marketing apps and business administration tools were the most common types of apps developed, with 86 per cent of the firms developing these types of apps. Only one of the reviewed businesses targeted or had done work for an NGO (an educational app for individuals with Down syndrome), and seven (20%) of the businesses targeted or had worked for governments; those targeting government organisations in Argentina were largely involved in transportation projects. Eleven of the firms (31%) targeted the public directly to distribute apps, while five firms (14%) only released apps on app stores. All eleven of the firms used the iOS App Store or the Android Play Store (or both), and four firms also developed on Blackberry and Windows Phone platforms. At the time of research, these firms had published a total of 142 apps directly on app stores, of which twelve apps contained contents that targeted the Argentinean market. These were largely informational apps about transportation or sports in Argentina, but there were also two social networking apps (both relating to social protests) and one game. Firms that developed marketing apps or customer relations tools also had their apps featured on the Android and iOS stores, but in these cases, the apps appeared under the name of the client who was responsible for distribution. Six of the nine interview participants developed custom apps for companies, the majority of which were located externally to Argentina. These participants did not have much room for creative freedom and typically worked through an intermediary, such as a marketing agency, having no contact with end users. Participants of smaller start-ups or that sold apps directly on the app store had contact with end users through feedback mechanisms or trial runs. Three participants had published free

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apps on the app store, which they explained were trials or a way of providing samples of their work and popularising their business. Participants did not feel that direct sales on the app store was an effective business model as the risks were too great and it was very difficult to popularise the app or even get it seen; however, one developer had found success through in-app sales. All participants had worked internationally or intended to expand internationally. Participants explained they were interested in creating “neutral” or internationally marketable apps as the Argentinean market was too small to be viable: “Developing an app for the rest of the world, it takes almost the same amount of money as to develop it for a small market.” Two participants were developing web 2.0 platforms for an interactive mobile app that would enable users to share feedback on television programmes, football matches or other events. Both start-ups were focused on the Argentinean market, which they explained was out of convenience; they intended to expand. While one of the start-ups had not yet decided on their target client, the other planned to sell their apps to television networks, which would play a large role in streamlining the types of contents that users would share. While most of the apps developed by participants in this study were custom projects for businesses and related to marketing, there were some exceptions. One participant had created a cacerolazo protest app which he had distributed for free on the Google Play Store; this was out of personal interest but also a way to showcase his work. In general, this developer focused on custom design projects for multinational corporations, particularly social networking apps, which had turned out to be the most popular in Indonesia. In another case, a participant had developed a mobile app for an Argentinean card game for purchase on the iOS app store. Although the game was a success and hit number one in Argentina, he explained it was not financially rewarding enough as the market was too small; they would not target the Argentinean market again. The firm generally develops game apps in English only and targets the iOS App Store market in the United States. None of the respondents had developed apps for rural or marginalised groups. They did not feel that NGOs were an interesting target market; as one developer explained, “They don’t pay!”; and in most cases they had never been contacted by NGOs. Two respondents had received funding from the government software fund FONSOFT, which they were using to extend their target internationally. Participants were not aware of any government-funded app projects that specifically targeted users in Argentina. Moreover, none of the developers had considered developing

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apps in indigenous languages or with indigenous cultural contents as they felt there was no interest for such apps. One developer responded, “The indigenous? What do they know of phones? They don’t have the devices to use apps, they don’t know they exist.”

Case Study 2: Indigenous Communicators Roughly 3 per cent of Argentina’s 40.1 million citizens over the age of fifteen self-identified as indigenous or as having indigenous ancestry in the 2010 Census (INDEC, 2012). Colonisation and the formation of the Argentine nation operated to ‘invisibilise’ indigenous peoples: the European identity of Argentina was fomented in educational materials and government documents, where indigenous peoples were characterised as marginal groups of the past or “other” to the nation state. In the 1970s, indigenous collectives formed firstly in Buenos Aires and later in other regions of the country, and beginning in the 1980s, a number of indigenous rights movements mobilised (Gordillo and Hirsch, 2003). In more recent years, indigenous communities have been fighting for their right to media production; more particularly, their right to “communication with identity.” In 2009, a proposal created by representatives of over 700 indigenous communities demanded that Argentina’s Audiovisual Communication Services Law, under development at the time, include the right to communication with identity (Mignoli, 2010). Indigenous representatives across the nation spoke out during the public consultation phase of the law. Some criticised the mass media for its failure to speak of indigenous culture or for supporting injustices against their communities, and others mentioned their right to self-representation (Guzmán, 2011). The SCA Law reserves one AM, FM and television frequency for indigenous peoples in each locality and recognises indigenous languages alongside Spanish as official broadcasting languages. However, the communication with identity movement is not confined to broadcast media. Indigenous peoples have been using various media channels, such as Facebook and blogs, to express their culture and advance their communication goals. Here we are concerned with this second phase of the communication with identity movement and its intersections with new media, and, more specifically, the implications for mobile media services. Our research followed the advance of one indigenous leader in the province of Buenos Aires, Julio, who runs a community blog, Facebook page and Twitter account on Guaraní culture and has been active in numerous meetings, events and hearings connected to the communication with identity

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movement. Data was collected through participatory observation at two indigenous communication workshops, two events on “communication with identity,” six other indigenous political or cultural meetings, and a public hearing on the Digital Audiovisual Communication Services Plan. Where relevant, speeches by indigenous leaders were recorded for posterior analysis. In addition, three qualitative interviews were conducted with Julio – in October 2013, November 2013 and September 2014. These interviews were exploratory and concerned his perspectives on communication with identity, the evolving plans his community has in this respect, as well as his interactions with and opinions on mobile telephony and social media. Data was also collected from online materials. In addition to the three sites mentioned above, content analysis was conducted on seven websites and five Facebook pages that promote indigenous communication and are managed by indigenous organisations in Argentina. These sites were identified through participant referrals and connections made at the events and meetings. Some of these websites provide their definition or understanding of communication with identity as well as recordings of indigenous leaders and communicators speaking about their projects. Thus, these websites were used to collect further perspectives on the meaning of “communication with identity” as well as to analyse the manner in which indigenous organisations are using social media. A central concept for communication with identity is decolonisation. In 2011, a group of over 100 indigenous communicators came together for a series of seminars in Buenos Aires, culminating in a manual titled Communication with Identity: Contributions to the Construction of a Model for Indigenous Communication in Argentina. This manual provides their perspective on the principles and values of indigenous communication, characterised as “communication for the decolonisation of the spoken word.” Through the production of their own media, they can express their culture and, in this way, bring about the decolonisation of “our gestures, our acts, [and] the language with which we name the world.” Moreover, this process will involve decolonising the media channels themselves. The report criticises traditional mass media, including intercultural or community stations, for making all the decisions: “You Participate: I Decide.” They specify: “The commitment and challenge we have today is to construct communication tools that are in accordance with our own strategies” (Comunicación con Identidad: 32). Similarly, in the speeches delivered by two indigenous leaders at AFSCA’s public hearing on the Digital Audiovisual Communication Services Plan, decolonisation was understood in terms of having

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ownership over media channels rather than simply producing indigenous contents. A leader from Jujuy argued, “Most importantly, we need to decolonise the minds of all our brothers, sisters and colleagues, on a daily basis, so that we can make our native land more just” (personal recording, 19/09/2014). He explained further that the injustices and discrimination on the part of media channel owners meant that indigenous peoples have been excluded. In Julio’s community, discrimination continues to be a problem, and some of the young people are now ashamed of their indigenous heritage. The community is focusing on communication projects to promote their culture and identity within the community, as well as to visibilise their existence and culture beyond the community. Julio explained that societal ignorance of indigenous cultures is a major factor in the discrimination they face and that they are “extremely excluded at a social level.” He explained further, “All this work we need to do [i.e., creating their own media channels and contents] is so that we can be actors; it is to give the people, the society, the message that we are political subjects.” This was intimately linked to “preserving territory, culture and participating at a political level” (personal interview, 28/10/2013). In this sense, “communication with identity” is not only about promoting indigenous culture but also about gaining agency and shifting the power structures that marginalise indigenous peoples. That is, it is about instigating the development of a pluricultural society. The websites managed by indigenous organisations reviewed in this research contained similar concepts of “communication with identity”. In a YouTube video posted on an indigenous radio homepage, a community leader in Jujuy province explains, “What’s important for us is the ability to express ourselves, to make ourselves visible as indigenous people, our customs, our culture, the problems that we are facing” (SerJatun Inti, 2013). In another YouTube video, a radio coordinator in Salta province explains When I turn on the TV, it’s all about Buenos Aires, about robberies, killings, things that bring fear, and us, as indigenous peoples, we appear in this media as problems…when we block a road they portray us as vagabonds, as drunks, as people that don’t want to work… The idea we have for our media is to change that… we want to speak about our situation in order to decolonise (Economiapopular, 2013).

Julio uses a blog, Facebook page and Twitter account to publicise the achievements of the community and the cultural events he attends as well as to connect with other indigenous leaders and organisations. He explained that he only wants to share the positive things about indigenous

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peoples online. Social media, in his opinion, are not useful for addressing human rights violations, this needs to be done in person, but they can be effective in visibilising their culture and shifting the wider opinion of indigenous peoples. His objective is “that the youth can become involved in the social networks and transmit everything our culture stands for” (personal interview, 28/09/2014). The idea is that the young people use their mobiles to develop videos and other contents for the webpages and the radio station that they are in the process of establishing. While many of the youth have smartphones and there has been a free Wi-Fi signal in the community since January 2014, as of September 2014, community members had not interacted with or posted anything on the webpages. Julio feels the youth are losing interest in the community project and that other community members lack the confidence or knowhow to use social media. For this reason they have been carrying out a series of capacitybuilding workshops that deal with both traditional communication and technical issues relating to content production, radio management and social networking. Many indigenous radio stations in Argentina also manage a website or Facebook page through which they share video recordings or photos from cultural events and meetings. In addition, they often re-post and share entries from other pages that concern indigenous rights issues at a national and international level. Julio explained that Twitter and Facebook have proven to be useful tools for connecting with indigenous organisations and contributing to wider indigenous movements. However, in the long run, he hopes that they can create their own sharing platforms, and in particular, a Guaraní search engine that will be used across the continent. He explained Google has interests from another world, from other countries, so we need to create our own server, a server that would be of the Guaraní culture. In various Guaraní meetings, I have been spreading this message that it is necessary to have our own server at the level of the continent (Personal interview, 28/09/2014).

While Julio uses social media tools to spread information and perspectives on indigenous culture, he does not find these networks appropriate for communicating with individuals. In the past he had a smartphone with Facebook and WhatsApp, but now has a basic phone and uses text messages and calls only. He explained that he prefers a more direct form of communication, and for that reason, does not use social networking tools for daily bidirectional communication. At a communication workshop in his community, he explained

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The messages that we can communicate directly are the most important, because this is our traditional communication… We have to take advantage of this situation [the social networks] to move ahead with our communications, but we can also have meetings and workshops among ourselves to do this. And this, for me, is the most important, that is, a meeting that involves the communication that is the most traditional for us (Personal recording, 27/09/2014).

The community collaborated with private companies and other organisations to develop their communications projects. They obtained a free Wi-Fi signal through an arrangement with a small Internet service provider: the company uses the community-owned land to transmit Internet to their clients while the community benefits from free Wi-Fi and a communications tower from which they will later broadcast an FM radio signal. To develop the blog site on Guaraní culture, Julio worked with a communications professional who provided assistance free of charge. The professional created the technical structure of the site, but Julio had direct input on the design and layout, and was trained in how to create entries. In the long run, they hope to generate the capacity within the community to develop their own communication tools but for now are trying to have influence on the communication tools they use by entering partnerships with professionals. Rather than being lent mobile and Internet services by providers, they intend to manage their own communication company which will operate a virtual mobile network and an Internet search engine. This will not only provide employment in the community but, more importantly, shift the power structures of digital communication. From Julio’s perspective, the ownership of service and platform provision is an integral part of the fight for autonomy and decolonisation.

Conclusion A pivotal issue for mobile media inclusion is the orientation of mobile apps. Apps mediate users’ involvement with mobile functions and the Internet, often setting parameters for information access and user-created contents. In 2008 Zittrain characterised the expanse of mobile Internet as part of a larger trend of “appliancisation” (101) in which the generative quality of the Internet is relinquished through the use of fixed proprietary platforms. Mobile apps are implicated within wider proprietary networks that shape their production: multinational corporations provide the software for mobile telephony as well as the distribution platforms for their contents. The interfaces and affordances we encounter on our mobile phones are interwoven with the cultural, and capitalist, biases of the

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production processes, and in effect could create contexts of subjugation within developing world localities (Srinivasan, 2012). Thus, in this chapter, we conceptualised mobile media inclusion not as access to apps and contents but rather as political struggles over production processes, and we honed in on app developers and indigenous communicators in Argentina as a lens through which to analyse these dynamics. App developers consulted in this research largely catered their projects to commercial and international markets. Over 80 per cent of the reviewed app development firms were involved in custom apps for commercial businesses, often located abroad. A main issue that disconnected developers from users in Argentina related to app distribution channels. Few developers in this study marketed apps independent of app stores, and if they did, the target was almost exclusively international, often with users in the United States. Developers felt it was important to target the more lucrative international markets due to the costs involved in developing and marketing apps on app stores. In effect, app developers were not interested in mobile use trends in Argentina. In general, they produced either neutral products for the app stores or, more commonly, custom design projects for commercial businesses. Social networking and web 2.0 apps were typically designed for large companies, such as Coca Cola or television networks, and thus such apps were developed for marketing ends rather than the interests of users. Our findings suggest that the majority of apps developed by Argentinean developers that are made available to the general public are marketing apps contracted and distributed over app stores by commercial businesses, with no research into the interests of end users on the part of the developers. Meanwhile, indigenous communicators in Argentina have been actively fighting for their right to “communication with identity.” This involves not only the production of their own media contents but also ownership of media channels and platforms. From their perspective, the structure of communication and media services in Argentina is rife with discrimination and has excluded and invisibilised indigenous people. They aim not only to shift power inequalities in media production but also to stride ahead with wider goals of decolonisation and indigenous autonomy. To return to Carpentier's distinction between “participation in media” and “participation through media,” we saw that they are inexorably linked. That is, wielding social power through media presupposes local ownership of media production. To visibilise indigenous culture and fight discrimination, indigenous actors in this study expressed their right to influence and partake in all forms of media production, including the ownership of new media platforms. For them to be social actors and

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influence the creation of a pluricultural society, the communication tools themselves need to be decolonised. Along these lines, Julio’s community aimed to develop their own Internet search engine and manage their own mobile network service company. Despite the efforts of indigenous communicators to publicise their work on communication with identity and their interests in visibilising their cultures and languages, app developers consulted in this study had never considered indigenous communicators as a target market. Further, one developer assumed indigenous peoples did not use modern technologies such as mobile phones. App developers are positioned within a wider social structure that discriminates and invisibilises indigenous peoples. In effect, indigenous communicators are doubly excluded from app production. In general, we found that app developers in Argentina do not consider the interests of users within their own country. We suggest that this lack of consideration reflects the app distribution system: the large platform providers’ app stores do not favour local markets or local developers, yet they have become the standard way to distribute apps to the general public, potentially blocking alternative distribution platforms. Some developers in our study explained that they had targeted general public users in Argentina through the app stores to carry out a trial run or showcase their work. However, developers had not considered showcasing apps on indigenous cultures or languages as they had no awareness of indigenous communicators’ interests. On the one hand, indigenous communicators need to capture the interests of app developers or other professionals involved in platform production to move ahead with their communication goals and promote their culture. On the other hand, such professionals are intimately linked to and influenced by the very media structures that silence indigenous communication. Cornwall (2004) suggests using an analysis of space to conceptualise participation. Social actors may be denied or granted space by institutions, or generate their own space for political engagement where the manner in which the space is created influences the dynamic of participation. We saw that the mobile app industry doubly denies space for indigenous participation, firstly due to its commercial and international orientation, and secondly, due to the discrimination and invisibilisation of indigenous peoples. However, our research on indigenous communicators saw three ways in which they were creating their own spaces for media participation. First, indigenous leaders and communicators across the country were coming together to create spaces for indigenous voices in the development of media laws and regulations. Second, they were carrying out capacitybuilding workshops in media production and management, and in this way

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opening up space for indigenous peoples to produce their own contents as well as potentially influence the structure of sharing platforms or even the underlying code. Third, in the case of Julio’s community, they had collaborated with an Internet service company to obtain a free Wi-Fi signal and a communication professional to create a blog site; in these ways, they generated the space to influence the communications tools used in the community. Where mobile media services are largely produced and distributed by multinational corporations in line with market interests, we need to be wary of assumptions that mobile telephony necessarily engenders participation and empowerment at the local level. Particularly in postcolonial contexts where local cultures have been subjugated and invisibilised, sharing platforms may reinforce existing hegemonies rather than enable a true form of participation. The decolonisation of mobile media will involve power shifts in the production and ownership of the underlying platforms. Digital inclusion, thus, not only concerns access and affordability but more importantly the political economy of technology production. The M4D research area needs to carefully consider the orientation of mobile media services and how marginalised groups can participate in the planning and production processes.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Cecilia Gordano Peire, Marc Esteve del Valle, Talia Leibovitz Libedinsky, Ruben Carillo 0DUWÕғQ and Beatriz Revelles for language assistance. I am grateful to Mario Valdéz for his support in connecting me with indigenous leaders.

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CHAPTER SIX MOBILE PHONES IN WATER SERVICE DELIVERY: TURNING BENEFICIARIES TO PARTICIPANTS? JOHAN HELLSTRÖM 1 AND MARIA JACOBSON 2

The use of mobile technologies in the water sector is changing the way water is governed. Although mobile applications and services are believed to increase community participation in the water sector, the evidence base to support this assumption is limited. Through an analysis of three Mobile Technology for Development (M4D) projects, this chapter aims at understanding opportunities and constraints in mobile participation for sustainable water services, as well as understanding how community participation through mobile phones is used to improve water services delivery. The results reveal that the benefits match the hopes: improved service delivery, new and better data, strengthened consumer voice and reduced costs for the implementer. Constraints related to access include user costs, insufficient marketing of the service and absence of basic infrastructure. Constraints related to interaction include lack of responsiveness and lack of incentives to use the system. The chapter concludes that increased participation is never an end in itself and that transparency and accountability require willingness, capacity and the mandate to act on part of the responsible institution.

Introduction Despite the significant progress in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector since 1990, 3 there is much that remains to be done. More 1

DSV, Stockholm University, SE–10691 Stockholm, Sweden. [email protected] Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), SE-111 51 Stockholm, Sweden. [email protected]

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than one third of the population in sub-Saharan Africa still use unsafe drinking water sources (WHO and UNICEF, 2014). The current water crisis, however, is not due to a physical shortage of water; rather it is a crisis of governance. Water governance may be defined as “the range of political, social, economic and administrative systems that are in place to develop and manage water resources and the delivery of water services, at different levels of society” (Rogers and Hall, 2003:7). Governance weaknesses in the water sector include fragmented and ineffective institutions, a lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities, questionable resource allocation, unclear or non-existent regulatory frameworks, weak accountability of politicians, policymakers and implementing agencies and outright corruption (United Nations, 2006). A lack of knowledge and awareness of rights and responsibilities among water users has further exacerbated the problem (Dubreuil and Hofwegen, 2006). On the ground, the effects of poor governance can be seen, for instance, in terms of inequitable access to water services, poor water quality, service unreliability and low functionality of water infrastructure. At the operational level, water managers are faced with incomplete data sets that make planning and decision-making difficult (United Nations, 2006). One of the biggest challenges when it comes to the provision of water services is the lack of sustainability of services, particularly infrastructure. Many factors contribute to this but they are all related to governance weaknesses – low investment in water, an unreliable supply chain of spare parts at the district level, and limited human resources. This is far from a new problem and many approaches and tools have been developed to improve sustainability. Recent examples include the UNICEF WASHBottleneck sector analysis tool and the Sustainability Compact (Schweitzer et al., 2014), essentially an agreement between governments and partners to ensure the functionality of water supply systems. Due to the decentralised nature of water services, at the core of the discussion on sustainability of WASH infrastructure is the notion of community participation. Involving end users throughout the entire project cycle fosters ownership and improves accountability, and responding to the needs of the community increases the likelihood of success and thereby also makes it more cost-efficient (WSUP and USAID, 2013). Countries in East Africa have introduced systems where communities are responsible for the basic operation and maintenance of their water schemes. For these community-managed schemes to work, community participation is key to nurturing ownership and responsibility in relation to the shared infrastructure. Evidence from rural water supply projects shows 3

1990 is the most common Millennium Development Goals (MDG) baseline year.

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that community participation has a significant impact on achieving functioning systems (Narayan, 1995; Prokopy, 2005). Indeed, Marks and Davis (2012) observe that there is a strong correlation between community participation and a sense of ownership of rural water supplies in Kenya, and especially among those involved in the decision-making. It is well known that women spend more time on water-related activities due to traditional gender roles. In two studies focusing on rural water in Uganda, the importance of women’s participation for a sustainable community water supply is emphasised (Baguma et al., 2013; Quin et al., 2011). However, women are often underrepresented in decision-making processes related to water management (Quin et al., 2011). The rapid expansion of mobile networks and spread of mobile devices in developing countries has led to a great deal of excitement and hype in development circles, especially the belief that mobile access and services can simplify interaction, encourage participation, improve service delivery, and lead to better development outcomes. With the expansion of the mobile network, and mainly using Short Message Service (SMS) and/or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) as communication channels, a variety of simple mobile phone-based applications and services for low-income populations in areas like health, education, banking, and governance have been piloted and implemented in East Africa (Hellström, 2010). Despite a relatively slow start, mobile technology has also made its way to the water sector, changing the way water is governed (SchaubJones et al., 2013). Mobile services can potentially make a difference in a number of governance challenges, especially when it comes to increasing community participation, which is considered key for the sustainability of water service delivery (WSUP and USAID, 2013). Indeed, Jaehyang So, manager of the World Bank-administered multi-donor partnership Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP), observes that getting direct, instant feedback from citizens͒is revolutionising the water sector (Pearce, 2013). Mobile applications can facilitate access and interaction in direct and indirect ways; through targeted awareness-raising campaigns on water and sanitation issues among citizens (for example, www.ttcmobile.com and NetWas in Uganda), simplifying billing and metering through mobile payment services (Hope et al., 2011), and improving transparency on sector funds (e.g., www.akvo.org). Mobile applications are also used to improve accountability and participation by facilitating data collection and monitoring the status of water sources (for example, www.waterfor people.org and http://www2.manobi.com/en) and strengthening consumer voice through online platforms (Odugbemi and Lee, 2010). See Hellström

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and Jacobson (2013) for a snapshot of available water services enabled by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in East Africa in 2013. Although mobile applications and services are believed to increase participation in the water sector, the evidence base to support this is limited (for example, anecdotal white papers and reports like World Bank 2012; Finlay and Adera, 2012; Ross and Luu, 2012). Due to the novelty of the technology, the poor sustainability rate, combined with organisations’ reluctance to openly share their failures (and successes too sometimes), there is a paucity of academic literature on mobile interventions in the water sector beyond the hype and the hopes, particularly when it comes to the notion of participation.

Research Design This chapter analyses the notion of mobile participation in the context of three M4D projects in the water sector. Our analysis aims to understand opportunities and constraints in mobile participation for sustainable water services, as well as understand how community participation through mobile phones is used to improve water services delivery. This chapter builds on two previous articles by Hellström and Jacobson (2013, 2014). The first article examined how ICT can be used to improve water governance and cooperation while decreasing corruption. Drawing from cases in East Africa, the article showed how the use of ICT has improved market access and enhanced the possibility of sharing and accessing information, which can be used to increase knowledge, transparency and accountability. Findings from the first article were later discussed and validated during the seminar “Changing Relationships: ICT to Improve Water Governance” at the World Water Week in 2013. The second article builds on the first and was presented at the M4D 2014 conference. Four mobile technology-enabled cases were chosen for analysis in order to understand the common benefits and challenges for increased and sustainable use of mobile applications in the provision of water services (Hellström and Jacobson, 2014). To supplement the findings from the previous research, this study used nine face-to-face semi-structured interviews with water project staff, local government officials and users during field visits in East Africa in December, 2012. The interviews were followed up in late 2013 and early 2014 via e-mail for project updates and respondent validation. The interviews were transcribed, and the software Nvivo was used to code, analyse and sort the content under categorical themes (such as access, interaction, opportunities, and constraints).

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As stated previously, the use of mobile phones in the water sector is a relatively new phenomenon. Because of this, many projects are still in the early stages of implementation and therefore difficult to evaluate or measure in terms of impact. End users are few and hard to identify. This is also true for the cases selected in this study. Another limitation with this study is that participation was not the main focus when the original data was collected, although it has proven to be a key area of interest. This chapter starts with an analysis of the notion of “participation” in mobile technology for development (M4D) interventions in the water sector, highlighting the concepts of access and interaction. The chapter explores discourses and practices of participation and briefly elaborates on mobile participation successes and failures. Through an analysis of three situated case studies of mobile participation in water projects in Uganda and Kenya, the chapter explores the opportunities and constraints that arise in practice. The chapter concludes with a comparative analysis, taking the frame of reference into account, of mobile participation in the context of deployment and future needs.

Mobile Participation Pateman (1970) noted that “the widespread use of the term [participation] has tended to mean that any precise, meaningful content has almost disappeared; ‘participation’ is used to refer to a wide variety of different situations by different people” (Pateman, 1970: 1). This is also the case in the M4D field where mobile participation seems to cover everything from financial inclusion through mobile payment services to simple informational public service delivery (where an informed citizenry leads to higher engagement) – it basically means no more than using the service offered in one way or another. There are plenty of macro-level quantitative studies that indicate a link between mobile technology access and use, and improved democracy (including participation) (Howard, 2010; Shirazi et al., 2010), but few studies look at specific M4D applications and interventions designed to improve democracy and participation (Grossman et al., 2013; Hellström and Karefelt, 2012). Nevertheless, there are two recurrent concepts that seem to play a crucial role as necessary conditions for mobile participation; namely, the concepts of access and interaction. As has been noted in several M4D studies, access to mobile networks, handsets and services is a prerequisite for mobile participation – but access alone does not translate to participation. That said, one of the repeated arguments for using mobile phones for and in development, beside their simplicity of use and affordability amongst others, is that they have a

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reach that exceeds any other interactive communication technology in developing regions. Yet, universal access has not been achieved in either Kenya or Uganda, and there are real access divides between rural/urban, women/men, young/old, and poor/rich people/groups. GSMA (2012) estimate an 89 per cent mobile coverage (across the population, not in terms of geographic land area) in Kenya and 75 per cent coverage in Uganda. In Uganda, nearly 96 per cent of the uncovered population reside in rural areas (GSMA, 2013). Assumed mobile subscription rate in Kenya is 77 per cent and in Uganda 44 per cent (World Bank, 2014), but given that multiple SIM-card ownership is a common practice, one can conclude that the unique subscriber penetration rate is significantly below the subscription rate, especially in rural areas (Hellström, 2010). According to GSMA, the unique subscriber penetration rate in Kenya is 31 per cent and in Uganda it is as low as 26 per cent (GSMA 2013). The unique number of subscribers who own their individual handset is unknown. To further elaborate on mobile access, gender-sensitive mobile statistics are hard to come by. Existing studies have found that more men than women have access to mobile phones but how equitably distributed the access is in terms of women’s handset ownership is fairly unknown. The 2012–13 Uganda National Household Survey however, reveals that 22 per cent more males than females own their individual mobile phone (UBOS, 2014). Available statistics on mobiles do not reveal contextual and technological challenges such as low quality of network, financial constraints acquiring airtime and maintaining handset, and issues concerning electricity and charging the battery. For example, the majority of the East African households are not connected to the power grid and lack access to other electricity solutions and therefore need to pay to charge their phones. Given that access is granted, participation is still not guaranteed. Rather, interaction may be seen as an intermediary layer between access and participation (Carpentier, 2007). Mobile interaction in active innovations often comes through citizen feedback mechanisms; that is, complaints, suggestions, monitoring, and satisfaction (Gigler et al., 2014). A 2012 white paper by Custer and zum Felde showed that the process of citizen feedback in development can be seen as an interconnection between 1) sharing information, 2) giving feedback, and 3) taking action and communicating back (Custer and zum Felde, 2012). While the distinction between access and participation is rather straightforward, the distinction between interaction and participation is not as obvious. To differentiate between interaction and participation, Carpentier (2007b) uses Pateman’s distinction between partial participation – the

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processes in which two or more parties contribute to a process but the final decision is made by one party only – and full participation, where everyone together has equal power to determine the outcome of decisions (Pateman, 1970). Carpentier points out that besides granting access and facilitating interaction, the participatory process is also about “balanced power relations and co-decision making” (Carpentier, 2007b). Much of the academic literature on typologies of participation has derived from Arnstein’s (1969) “ladder of participation.” Table 5 below is not an exception; it outlines the difference between partial/pseudo and full/genuine participation and can be seen as a scheme for analysing different levels of participation (Deshler and Sock, 1985, in Michener, 1998). It highlights the extent of control or power, stretching from pseudo-participation – “the manipulation of beneficiaries by development professionals to meet the needs of elites” (Michener, 1998:2106) – to genuine participation, where participants are empowered and have control over programme policy and management (Michener, 1998). According to a recent study (Gigler et al., 2014), distance between provider and recipient, in terms of both geographic distance and political distance (that is, power imbalances), leads to broken feedback loops and gives rise to gaps in transparency and accountability. This means that if the participation level is partial, there is a risk that the interaction is only used for informing, manipulating or consulting users at best; the process is not transparent and users cannot hold those in power accountable. Table 5 Participation Levels 1.

Genuine participation A. Empowerment i. Citizen control B. Cooperation i. Delegated power ii. Partnership

2.

Pseudo-participation A. Assistencialism i. Placation ii. Consultation B. Domestication i. Informing ii. Therapy iii. Manipulation

Source: Michener (1998).

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Access and interaction issues aside, a big challenge in M4D is to attract, increase and sustain participation, both in terms of user numbers and activity/frequency/transactions. The causes behind this failure vary but usually boil down to a number of reasons, including the failure to pinpoint and reach (usually through marketing) potential users, and functional failures where the “solution” does not do the right function or does not do the function right (Hellström and Tedre, forthcoming). Despite the growing view that mobile technologies can play a role in improving water supply services, unforeseen implementation and scalingup challenges have turned many projects into short-lived and forgotten pilots (as with a majority of ICT4D initiatives for that matter – see Heeks, 2002; Unwin, 2009; Dodson et al., 2013). A white paper by iHub Research (Moraa et al., 2012) indicates that 9 out of the 20 water applications identified in Kenya never made it outside the venue of the hackathon. The key reasons for failure, from a developer’s perspective, are mainly economical (limited funding opportunities, absence of sound sustainability models) and organisational (lack of capacity and support structures, difficulties to initiate partnership with key stakeholders) (Moraa et al., 2012). Seen from a wider perspective, failures can also be due to social and technical reasons (Hellström, 2011; Ojo et al., 2013). A mobile project that has received attention in ICT4D and water circles is Maji Matone, which encouraged Tanzanian citizens to report water point breakdowns via SMS while informing users about rural water supply issues. It created a lot of hype and received high visibility before the project had even started, including conference invitations and media publicity (in The Guardian; featured in the Open Government Partnership launch video, for example) before its launch in 2009. The budget for the fiscal year 2009–10 was 600,000USD. It failed completely to demonstrate the connection between citizen feedback and improved service delivery – only 53 usable SMS were received. The obstacles to participation were identified as technological (electricity, network coverage), social (gender norms), and political (risk and apathy) (Thomson et al., 2012). The implementers concluded that a solution has to fit the context as well as the problem, and recommended that projects like this should not depend on the “crowd” but rather on a network of volunteers (Thomson et al., 2012). There are few successful mobile services that are sustained over time in East Africa (Hellström and Tedre, forthcoming). Two mobile services that stand out, looking at interactions/transaction, number of users, and reach, are the user-centred social monitoring tool developed by UNICEF Uganda, Ureport, and the well-documented mobile payment service that has become synonymous with Kenya’s mobile success – M-Pesa. The

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Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom introduced M-Pesa in 2007 and, according to a press release in August 2014, it now has over 19 million customers, which is more than 80 per cent of the country’s adult population (Safaricom, 2014) and, interestingly enough, more than the adult literacy rate in the country, which stands at 72 per cent (World Bank, 2014). Reasons why it has attracted so many users vary; first mover advantage, high cost of alternative ways of domestic remittances, Safaricom’s status as a monopoly, among others. Ureport, on the other hand, reaches almost 300,000 signed-up members, using simple SMS messages to poll questions, share results, and send information. It is especially targeting the Ugandan youth in order to strengthen communityled development and increase citizen participation. Ureport allows users to speak their mind via SMS on community developments; some of these reports are later discussed in local and national media or sent to key stakeholders. If acted upon, information via SMS is fed back to the Ureporters. Even though the SMS communication is fully sponsored by UNICEF, only 20–25 per cent actively responds to questions or requests sent out. The quiet percentage, the other 80–75 per cent, may be considered mobile lurkers; that is, members of a community who observe but do not actively participate. There is a clear distinction between potential users and actual users. GSMA has developed a framework that can be used to identify user challenges and obstacles toward regular use of a mobile service with a focus on effective marketing (Davidson and McCarty, 2011). It was originally designed to analyse mobile payment services, but the framework may also be applied to other M4D services. The framework illustrates how an unaware potential user can become a regular user of the service (see Table 6). Table 6 Customer Journey, Modified to Cover all M4D Services. Unaware

Awareness

Understanding Potential Potential Potential user has user has user never heard of understands heard of the service how the the service and knows service what it is could be useful Source: Davidson and McCarty (2011).

Knowledge

Trial

User knows the steps necessary to interact

User tries the service

Regular Use User habitually uses the service

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Awareness campaigns must, according to Davidson and McCarty (2011), build understanding to help users see how the mobile service is both relevant and beneficial to them. Once the potential user is aware of the service, understands what it does and how it could be useful, the user learns how to interact with it (sometimes through a registration process) and is thereafter ready for the first trial. After a number of interactions, users can become regular users. While reaching out to potential users and creating awareness have proven challenging (Hellström and Karefelt, 2012), another case study carried out by GSMA showed that there are severe bottlenecks around knowledge/registration and trials too (Wills, 2014). The case, a content delivery service in mobile agriculture, used the above-mentioned framework to identify bottlenecks. Results from the study show that more than half of the registered users never actually accessed the service, over a quarter of the registered users used the service only once or twice, and less than 15 per cent of the registered users used the service regularly. Worth noting is that the authors defined use as “using the service once on a monthly basis for at least two months” (Wills, 2014).

Findings After assessing on-going projects in East Africa, three cases were singled out based on the following criteria: projects had to be active (that is, survived the first pilot phase), have a clear participatory approach, and the final selection of cases had to constitute of a mix of rural and urban projects (see Table 7). The selected cases are located in Kenya and Uganda (countries which have emerged as testing grounds for many ICT4D initiatives), and try to improve participation in various ways: while the rural case focusing on mapping/monitoring water points has a clear accountability angle, the two urban cases targeting households connected to the main water system and informal water vendors, respectively, try to improve transparency and participation in water service delivery. Data from the three projects reveal both opportunities and constraints of mobile participation for sustainable water services. Many of the general constraints identified in the conceptual framework also apply to these water governance projects, while other constraints are context-specific.

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Table 7 The Three Selected Cases. Project Mobiles 4 Water (M4W), rural, Uganda

MajiVoice, urban, Kenya M-Maji, urban, Kenya

Partners Three international organisations; WaterAid, SNV, and IRC. In collaboration with Makerere University, Uganda Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) with support from the World Bank Stanford University (US), implemented by the Umande Trust, Kenya

Objective Improve functionality of rural water points

Facilitate interaction between consumers and water service providers Provide information about water availability, location, price, and quality

Mobile 4 Water (M4W) Mobile 4 Water (M4W) has two main components: baseline data collection by hand pump mechanics (HPM), and problem reporting submitted by water consumers. For the first component, the district water officer engages the HPM to collect baseline data on water points using simple Java-enabled mobile phones. Data like current status repairs and the service history of water points is collected on the location and geotagged. Since the data is uploaded in real time to the database, it offers new possibilities for the district water officer to monitor the sector, plot the data on online maps, and capture trends over time. Before the M4W project, the district water office did all the monitoring manually, which was very time-consuming. According to project staff, geo-referenced data minimises the risks of forged monitoring and double counting of water sources, and accountability is also improved as donors can see each other’s contributions. According to one HPM, however, the data collection format and the type of data that can be entered into digital forms are limited and cannot always be adapted to the local context. Valuable knowledge that is hard to structure into a form is thereby lost. The second component allows water users to report problems with their water points by sending an SMS to a dedicated short code. The SMS is sent to the district and to the Ministry of Water and Environment, after which a notification is sent to the HPM responsible for the specific water point. The HPM then has 48 hours in which to do an assessment of the problem using a form in the phone. While the district handles major repairs, minor repairs are done by the HPM and paid for by the community. When the water point is repaired, a final form is sent to the

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district and ministry and a verification form in paper format is filled out and signed off by the water user committee. Prior to the project, users had to write a letter explaining the problem to the village local council official – also a very time-consuming and complicated procedure. The problem-reporting mechanism has, according to one HPM, improved service delivery: better time management, increased efficiency of service delivery and reduced transport cost. “We used to move anyhow just to reach and nothing was wrong” (HPM in Western Uganda). The mobile intervention has also greatly reduced the time taken from reporting a faulty water source to having it repaired. A process that could take months in the past now takes days, or even hours. Water consumers and users of the system are engaging in activities that were previously the responsibility of the government alone, such as monitoring and direct engagement with an HPM. HPMs have clear incentives for participating in the project; assisting with baseline monitoring can lead to business opportunities and has also resulted in increased trust and recognition at the village and sub-county levels. Being identified as part of the project and the newly formed association of HPMs, their role is now more formalised and they have more authority to help the community. Last but not least, having access to a mobile phone also means access to the Internet and social media such as Facebook. The incentive for the water user is the faster response time from problem report to action. M4W has also empowered the community in the sense that they are now the ones in charge of hiring, monitoring and paying the mechanics. But while there is an incentive to use the system for water users in case of a problem, there is also a cost involved. The cost of reporting a problem with a water point in an SMS (200 UGX, approx. 0.1 USD) is a potential barrier to using the system. This has resulted in people making phone calls (or beeping – intentional missed calling) to report their problem, which is cheaper but means that the data is not entered into the system. Increased accountability hopefully reduces the risk of wasteful utilisation of resources. In the case of M4W, the transparent way baseline data is collected has increased accountability between the different layers of government. According to a district water officer in Western Uganda; “I can be accountable to the district local council since I can share data which justifies the choices I make.” Accountability has also increased in the sense that Water User Committees are now monitoring and verifying the work by HPMs. Or in the words of an HPM in Western Uganda; “You can’t cheat the community anymore.”

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Absence of basic infrastructure like electricity, network coverage, technical know-how and support is mainly a rural challenge. An HPM informed us that on top of buying phone credit to make phone calls, sending SMSs and accessing the Internet, there is the additional cost of charging the battery, since few users and HPMs have electricity in their homes. Instead the user or HPM has to travel to special charging kiosks, which entails the cost of 500 UGX (0.25 USD) for charging the battery, another 2000 UGX (1 USD) for transport, and a wait of three hours for the battery to be fully charged (this to make sure that the battery is not stolen or replaced by a counterfeit battery). When the mobile phone needs repairs, they have to travel even further.

MajiVoice It was observed that utility response times and compliance in dealing with complaints, especially those from people in the informal settlements, were weak and unreliable. The platform MajiVoice was therefore designed to facilitate interaction between water consumers and water service providers in Kenya. By enabling access to information on rights and responsibilities while facilitating interaction, the playing field between water consumers and providers is levelled. Citizens can submit water-related complaints in a confidential way, using either their mobile phone or an online platform in addition to traditional communication channels such as calls and visits. According to the commercial director of Nairobi Water, the platform has led to a 50 per cent increase in citizen feedback and leakage reports. The MajiVoice feedback mechanism is designed to address the three interconnected steps identified by Custer and zum Felde (2012). Once a complaint has been submitted (a user shares this information), it is forwarded to the responsible water service provider for follow-up action. At the same time, a unique reference number is sent automatically to the customer via SMS that can be used to check the status of the complaint by dialling a short code (automated, immediate feedback). The service provider also updates the customer on the status of the complaint and gives information on programme processes and related events using SMS (feedback is given, action taken and all this is communicated in a timely manner). The SMS feedback mechanism is then finally integrated into monitoring and evaluation efforts. All this is done in an effort to incentivise citizens to participate. If an issue is not resolved within a set period, it is automatically escalated to a senior official for action, and finally, if still not resolved, to the attention of the relevant water service board and regulatory agency. In

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addition to submitting complaints, citizens can also use the system to access and pay their e-bills using mobile money. According to project staff, service delivery is greatly improved just by facilitating the billing and payment of water services and through the complaint systems. For the service providers, MajiVoice has an in-built monitoring mechanism that tracks how complaints are resolved, how long it takes and the performance of staff responsible for resolving complaints. Each complaint is assigned to a responsible customer care agent, who is bound by a Customer Service Charter and can be viewed by other staff and managers to ensure responsiveness. The system also allows service providers to broadcast information to its customers by SMS; for instance, in the case of service interruptions.

M-Maji M-Maji enables residents in Kibera, a large informal urban settlement in Nairobi, to access information on water availability, quality and price from vendors. It responds to a number of water-related problems identified by the residents; the long distance to buy water, lack of information of the nearest water point, high water prices, water shortages, and poor water quality. The application allows registered water vendors to market themselves by submitting their availability of water and daily rates via SMS (in the beginning via USSD but this proved to be too costly). The water buyer can then enter her/his location, again via SMS, whereupon a list of the nearest vendors and their prices is generated. In addition, the buyer can also choose to receive a free SMS with information on the vendor, directions and contact number. During the first six months in operation, 7000 requests were received. On a daily basis, roughly 30 water vendors (out of 158) advertise, and there are 50-100 queries from users (more if there is a severe water shortage). To minimise misuse, the system also allows buyers to rate the vendors in terms of water quality and service levels. Through the rating system, the role of the consumer is strengthened. The system also allows users to provide feedback and file complaints about vendors who misrepresent water availability, price or quality. However, M-Maji proved to have a poor capacity to act on complaints from the water buyers. If the receiving end lacks the capacity to respond to and act on a complaint, the information will be of no use and users will lose interest. The data transmitted through the system, although not aggregated at a higher level, still benefits the individual water consumer. However, the participatory design requires that data from water vendors are up to date

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and correct. The incentive to use the M-Maji system is clear for both actors: the water vendors increase their business and the users save time and money in the search for water.

Discussion and Conclusions As seen in the theoretical framework, access and interaction are key for mobile participation (Carpentier, 2007b). For the two urban Kenyan projects, MajiVoice and M-Maji, access to mobile technology did not constitute a major problem. M-Maji, operating in the largest slum in Nairobi, did a baseline study of 1000 households before launching and data from that study indicated that 94 per cent of the respondents had a mobile phone. The rural project M4W in Uganda, on the other hand, faced some profound access challenges. Not only did it operate in a region where the majority of the population is off grid and where mobilecharging facilities are scarce and expensive, it also targeted water consumers directly. Women traditionally collect water (and are therefore the first to identify a water problem such as faulty water pumps, a decreased quality of water, and so on), but women also have less access to mobile handsets (UBOS, 2014). Therefore, in this case, women’s participation, which is key for a sustainable community water supply (Baguma et al., 2013; Quin et al., 2011), is not assured, and this is something that needs to be addressed. Related to access is the issue of effective marketing (Davidson and McCarty, 2011), or rather the lack thereof. Many mobile services assume participation by a critical mass of users and depend on participation from the general crowd or specific users to succeed. Yet, many of the available services never reach out to the intended target group due to non-existing metadata (there are no search engines on simple phones, so if you do not know about a service, it is very hard to get informed), and poor marketing and awareness-raising efforts. This study confirms these findings and it was mentioned by all three cases that insufficient marketing of the service constitutes a constraint. Although it is clear that mobile technology presents new ways for water users to participate partially in the management and provision of water services, for this to happen users need to be made aware of the opportunities. More effort is required to make these tools accessible; marketing through multi-channel advertising campaigns to create an awareness and understanding of the service is therefore vital, and lacking at the moment. As noted by Wills (2014), there are severe bottlenecks around knowledge/registration and trial of a service,

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and moving the potential user from awareness to regular use requires different marketing interventions (Davidson and McCarty, 2011). Mobile projects must have clear user incentives, but end users do not often have access to the full picture and tend to be passive receivers of information. Given that it takes time for mobile services to catch on (if they take off at all) and that very few M4D services can be labelled as successful (Hellström and Tedre, forthcoming), one needs to ask whether or not citizens are interested in using these opportunities, engaging in direct interaction, or if the constraints of and reluctance to use available services are due to other factors. Therefore, to sustain participation, efforts to incentivise citizens to participate need to be developed further. Users must see a direct benefit from spending their time and resources and not just be passive feeders or receivers of data. The results from this study corroborate the findings of Custer and zum Felde (2012); in order to close the feedback loop and keep users engaged, the quality of interaction, such as a timely resolution of complaints, is vital. Project owners need to verify and provide feedback to users about their contributions and act on them to avoid user fatigue. From a provider’s point of view, the efficiencies gained through the use of mobile services, for example, efficient billing systems and effective data entry, cut costs and save scarce sector funds for more productive use. But increased efficiency also means an increased cost for the end-user that was not there before. Although communication costs have gone down, the total cost of mobile phone ownership, that is the cost of device itself, airtime (for data, voice and SMS), charging and so on, presents a barrier to participation. What seems to be clear is that mobile services can increase transparency and accountability to a certain extent, but not necessarily remove obstacles to participation. To achieve the positive development outcomes that mobile services promise in the water sector, a number of challenges need to be overcome. Many water governance projects assume that the main problem in the water sector lies in the lack of information and transparency. Although these aspects are important, other pressing resources are usually lacking too (financial resources, human and technical capacity, spare parts, among others). Access to information and increased transparency is thus never an end in itself unless the information is acted on. This leads us to the notion of accountability. While mobile services present opportunities for effecting accountability by providing better data, this rests on the assumption that there is someone at the receiving end of the information chain that perceives her/himself to be accountable. For example, citizen-reporting systems where water users feed a platform with

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information on faulty water points are and will be perceived as a waste of time unless the complaint is acted upon in a timely and transparent manner. To assure such responsiveness, it is therefore crucial that the responsible institution has the willingness, capacity, and, most importantly, the mandate to act on the information and/or on identified needs and wants of the citizens. Since public water services are a longterm commitment for which accountability ultimately rests with the government. M4D projects that aim to increase accountability need to be institutionalised in, and aligned with, government structures – and not compete with or undermine them. It may be argued that SMS-based public service monitoring tools, such as M4W, are already obsolete and can be replaced by more sophisticated solutions that address limitations such as lack of incentives and affordability issues. If the implementer’s interest is limited to the functionality of the hand pump, automated mobile solutions such as “smart hand pumps,” that is, hand pumps that record how and when they are used and transmit that data over the mobile network to a responsible organisation, may be a better solution. The information that these smart hand pumps submit can be used not only to structure and prioritise maintenance, repairs and investments but also to understand the users’ needs better. That said, if increased ownership and active participation are goals in themselves, SMS-based public service monitoring tools still have value. This study has shown that mobile access is not a guarantee for mobile participation – it is merely a prerequisite. Likewise, mobile interaction is no guarantee for mobile participation – it is a prerequisite too. Participation demands more of the design and of the users. On this note, it should be said that none of the services analysed here (or in Hellström and Jacobson, 2013) are enabling full participation; there is no equal power to determine the outcome of decisions. In agreement with the findings in Gigler et al. (2014), the geographic and political distance between the provider of the service and the user is too big, and this easily leads to broken feedback loops. The interaction that the services create is only used for informing, manipulating and consulting users at best; the overall process remains non-transparent and users still cannot hold those in power accountable. This means that M4D services such as those outlined in this study strip participation of its political connotation. The mobile participation that we see is partial at most. There is a need to further analyse and systematically validate the available tools in terms of their impact since most mobile services are pilots and still in the relatively early stages of product development. Smart

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qualitative data needs to be gathered and analysed. But research aside, there is a significant amount of experience available among providers and users alike, and better sharing of that knowledge will help to avoid the high cost of creating new services from scratch. Related to this issue is that failures are rarely announced and analysed, which is a pity since there is a great deal to be learnt from failures.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank SIWI for their support in general. A special thanks to Alejandro Jiménez, Kelvin Bai Lugaka, Rosemary Rop, and Pius Mugabi, who freely shared their contacts, knowledge and experience on this matter. Also, thanks to Matti Tedre, Caroline Wamala Larsson and Christelle Scharff for valuable feedback on the manuscript.

References Arnstein, Sherry, R. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Institute of planners 35 (4),1969: 216–224. Baguma, David, Jamal H. Hashim, Syed M. Aljunid and Willibald Loiskandl. “Safe-water Shortages, Gender Perspectives, and Related Challenges in Developing Countries: The Case of Uganda.” Science of the Total Environment 442, 2013: 96–102. Carpentier, Nico. “Participation and Media.” Reclaiming the Media: Communication Rights and Democratic Media Roles 2007:87–91. —. “Participation, Access and Interaction: Changing Perspectives.” In New Media Worlds: Challenges for Convergence, eds V. Nightingale and T. Zwyer. 2007b: 214–230. Custer, S. and J. zum Felde. Beneficiary Feedback Interviews and Snapshots. Background documentation commissioned for the World Bank Institute, Innovation Practice, Washington, D.C., 2012. Davidson, Neil and Y. McCarty. Driving Customer Usage of Mobile Money for the Unbanked. London, UK: GSM Association (GSMA), 2011. Deloitte and GSMA. Sub-Saharan Africa Mobile Observatory 2012. GSMA, November, 2012. Deshler, David and Donald Sock. Community Development Participation: A Concept Review of the International Literature. Paper presented at the International League for Social Commitment in Adult Education, Ljungskile, Sweden, 1985.

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Dodson, Leslie L., S. Sterling and John K. Bennett. “Considering Failure: Eight Years of ITID Research.” 9 (2), ICTD2012 Special Issue, 2013:19–34. Dubreuil, Céline and Paul Van Hofwegen. The Right to Water: from Concept to Implementation. World Water Council, 2006. Finlay, Alan and Edith Adera. “Application of ICTs for Climate Change Adaptation in the Water Sector: Developing Country Experiences and Emerging Research Priorities.” APC, IDRC, 2012. Gigler, Björn-Sören, Samantha Custer, Savita Bailur and Elizabeth Dodds. “Closing the Feedback Loop: Can Technology Amplify Citizen Voices?” International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. Washington, D.C., 2014. Grossman, Guy, Macartan Humphreys, and Gabriella Sacramone-Lutz. “Does Information Technology Flatten Interest Articulation? Evidence from Uganda.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISPP 36th Annual Scientific Meeting, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, IDC–Herzliya, Herzliya, Israel, Jul 04, 2013. GSMA. Sub-Saharan Africa Mobile Economy 2013. GSMA, November, 2013. http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/ssa2013/Sub-Saharan%20 Africa_ME_ExecSummary_English_2013.pdf Heeks, Richard. “Information Systems and Developing Countries: Failure, Success, and Local Improvisations.” The Information Society, 18(2), 2002: 101–112. Hellström, Johan. “The Innovative Use of Mobile Applications in East Africa.” Sida Review 12, 2010. —. “Mobile Governance: Applications, Challenges and Scaling-up.” In Mobile Technologies for Conflict Management. Springer, 2011: 159– 179. Hellström, Johan and Maria Jacobson. “Using Information and Communication Technology to Improve Water Governance and Cooperation”. In Cooperation for a Water Wise World – Partnerships for Sustainable Development. eds Jägerskog, A., Clausen, T. J., Lexén, K., and Holmgren, T. Report Nr. 32. SIWI, Stockholm, 2013. Hellström, Johan and Maria Jacobson. “‘You Can’t Cheat the Community Anymore’–Using Mobiles to Improve Water Governance.” In Proceedings of 4th International Conference on M4D Mobile Communication for Development, 2014: 48–59. Hellström, Johan and Anna Karefelt. “Mobile Participation? Crowdsourcing during the 2011 Uganda General Elections.” In Proceedings of M4D2012 28-29 February, 2012, New Delhi, India. eds Kumar, V., Svensson, J. 2012: 411–424.

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Hellström, Johan and Matti Tedre. “Failing Forward – Mobile Services in East Africa.” Working title. Forthcoming. Hope, Rob A., Tim Foster, A. Money, M. Rouse, N. Money and M. Thomas. “Smart Water Systems.” Project report to UK DFID. Oxford University, 2011. Howard, Philip. The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam. Oxford University Press, New York, 2010. Ross, Nancy, and Paula Luu, (eds). mWASH: Mobile Phone Applications for the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sector. Oakland, Pacific Institute and Los Angeles, CA, USA: Nexleaf Analytics, 2012. Kleine, Dorothea. “Policy Arena. ICT4What? – Using the Choice Framework to Operationalise the Capability Approach to Development.” Journal of International Development 22, 2010: 674– 692. Marks, Sara. J., Jennifer and Davis. “Does User Participation Lead to Sense of Ownership for Rural Water Systems? Evidence from Kenya.” World Development, 40(8), 2012: 1569–1576. Michener, Victoria. J. “The Participatory Approach: Contradiction and Co-option in Burkina Faso.” World Development 26(12), 1998: 2105– 2118. Moraa, Hilda., A. Otieno and A. Salim. “Technology in Solving Society’s Water Problems in Kenya.” iHub Research, June, 2012. Narayan, Deepa. “The Contribution of People’s Participation: Evidence from 121 Rural Water Supply Projects.” World Bank, Environmentally Sustainable Development Occasional Paper Series No. 1. Washington, D.C., 1995. Odugbemi, Sina and Taeku Lee. “Accountability through Public Opinion: From Inertia to Public Action.” World Bank Publications, 2010. Ojo, Adegboyega, Tomasz Janowski and Johanna Awotwi. “Enabling Development through Governance and Mobile Technology.” Government Information Quarterly 30, 2013: S32–S45. Pateman, Carole. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge University Press, 1970. Pearce, John. Changing Relationships: ICT to Improve Water Governance. World Water Week in Stockholm, Wednesday, 4 September 2013, WaterAid, London, 2013. Prokopy, Linda Stalker. “The Relationship between Participation and Project Outcomes: Evidence from Rural Water Supply Projects in India.” World Development 33(11), 2005: 1801–19.

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Quin, Andrew, Berit Balfors and Marianne Kjellén. “How to “Walk the Talk”: The Perspectives of Sector Staff on Implementation of the Rural Water Supply Programme in Uganda.” In Natural Resources Forum 35 (4), 2011: 269–282. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Rogers, Peter and Alan W. Hall. Effective Water Governance. (Vol. 7). Stockholm: Global Water Partnership, 2003. Safaricom. “Safaricom Cuts M-PESA Transaction Fees for Low and Medium Value Cash Transfers.” Press release, Nairobi, August 19, 2014. Sasaki, David, (ed). Technology for Transparency–The Role of Technology and Citizen Media in Promoting Transparency, Accountability and Civic Participation. Technology for Transparency Network. Amsterdam: Global Voices, 2010. Schaub-Jones, David, J. Beilharz and A. Nash. Applying ICT to Solve Complex WASH Challenges – Insights and Early Lessons from the Water and Health Sectors. 36th WEDC International Conference, Nakuru, Kenya, 2013. Schweitzer, Ryan, Claire Grayson and Harold Lockwood. Mapping of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sustainability Tools. Triple-S Working Paper 10, 2014. Shirazi, Farid, Ojelanki Ngwenyama and Olga Morawczynski. “ICT Expansion and the Digital Divide in Democratic Freedoms: An Analysis of the Impact of ICT Expansion, Education and ICT Filtering on Democracy.” Telematics and Informatics 27(1), 2010: 21–31. Thomson, Patrick, Rob A. Hope and Tim Foster. “Is Silence Golden? Of Mobiles, Monitoring, and Rural Water Supplies.” Waterlines 31 (4), 2012: 280–92. Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS). Uganda National Household Survey 2012/2013. Kampala Uganda; UBOS, 2014. United Nations. Water: A Shared Responsibility. The United Nations World Water Development Report 2. World Water Assessment Programme, 2006. Unwin, Tim. ICT4D: Information and Communication Technology for Development. Cambridge University Press, 2009. Wills, Adam. Mobile User Analytics Tool Case Study – Mobile Agriculture: Taking Full Advantage of your Usage Data. GSMA Mobile For Development Impact, 2014. WHO and UNICEF. Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2014 Update. World Health Organization, Geneva, 2014. World Bank. 2012 Information and Communications for Development: Maximizing Mobile. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012.

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CHAPTER SEVEN PRIVACY AND M4D INITIATIVES ANNA CROWE1

This chapter makes the case that a rights-based approach to development means giving respect for privacy higher priority in the planning, operational and monitoring stages of development initiatives involving mobile phones. The chapter adopts Pateman’s analysis of participation, situating privacy and data protection in mobile development initiatives as crucial enablers of self-governance. The chapter starts by setting out the conceptual and legal frameworks that support adopting a privacyrespecting approach to development. It then discusses existing standards and guidelines around privacy and development initiatives involving mobile telephony. It examines mobile money transfers in particular, drawing on an illustrative example to highlight weaknesses in existing frameworks for protecting privacy. Overall, the chapter proposes that putting respect for privacy into practice requires strengthening existing frameworks and developing new standards.

Introduction Privacy involves the ability of individuals to make autonomous choices about their lives, social relationships and identity. Autonomous decisionmaking is a prerequisite to participation in social, political and civic life; privacy is an integral aspect to participation, a concept “[that] directly addresses power and its distribution in society” (Servaes, 1999:198). Autonomy is understood as an individual’s subjective, internal capacity to

1

Legal Officer, Privacy International, 62 Britton Street, London EC1M 5UY, United Kingdom, [email protected]

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make a decision, alongside the existence of external social, political and technological conditions that make the decision possible (Roessler, 2005). Respect for the privacy of individuals benefitting from development initiatives increases their capacity for self-governance and enhances participatory processes within those initiatives. When M4D initiatives are guided by respect for privacy – for example, giving priority to ensuring that mobile phone users exercise control over their own information (such as seeking informed consent before data is shared) – they locate power in mobile phone users and allow them to participate with agency in an initiative. However, insufficient attention to privacy in M4D initiatives may reinforce existing distributions of power and limit the possibilities of self-governance. These outcomes, however, are rarely evident to development actors. A development initiative involving mobile phones may appear to generate emancipatory outcomes but at the same time obscure shifts in power that are deeply problematic; for instance, a mobile banking initiative can provide a community with the ability to conduct business more efficiently and productively but also be the means by which individuals are connected into a broader system of state surveillance that operates beyond their knowledge. This chapter calls for greater critical engagement with the privacy implications of mobile telephony in development work. While it does not set out a concrete research agenda, it calls upon development actors and researchers to begin conversations with colleagues working in the human rights field to understand the multiple ways in which M4D initiatives may entail unexpected (and often, unseen) limitations on rights. Taking a rights-based approach to development, including respect for the right to privacy, should be a core part of development actors’ work. However, the expansion of mobile initiatives is occurring alongside the absence of adequate protections for beneficiaries’ 2 privacy; many initiatives are being implemented in countries that lack appropriate laws to protect privacy and development actors are not proactively putting in place measures to respect beneficiaries’ privacy. 3 This is a situation that urgently needs to

2

This chapter uses the term “beneficiaries” as shorthand to refer to those who receive benefit from development initiatives. It is not intended to detract from the status of such individuals as rights-holders. 3 See, for example, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Humanitarianism in the Network Age. “…while private-sector organizations and Government regulators have been grappling with [privacy issues stemming from new technologies] for almost a decade, humanitarian organizations appear further behind.” (United Nations, 2013:42)

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change as the ubiquitous mobile phone is deployed in an ever-increasing variety of development initiatives. This chapter first describes the right to privacy and its relationship to development and participation. Second, it outlines existing standards and guidance relevant for protecting privacy in M4D initiatives. Third, it provides an illustrative example to draw out some of the privacy and data protection concerns that arise in the context of mobile money transfers, one of the areas of M4D work most lauded for its transformative potential. Finally, it concludes with some observations on the next steps in bringing privacy within discussions on M4D initiatives.

The Right to Privacy and Development Human rights are universal: they belong to every human being in every human society. They do not differ with geography or history, culture or ideology, political or economic system, or stage of societal development. (Louis Henkin, The Age of Rights. Columbia University Press; New York, 1990:2)

Sen (1999) has famously characterised development as freedom. For Sen, “[v]iewing development in terms of expanding substantive freedoms directs attentions to the ends that make development important, rather than merely to some of the means that, inter alia, play a prominent part in the process” (1). He gives two reasons why freedom is central to the process of development (2) The evaluative reason: assessment of progress has to be done primarily in terms of whether the freedoms that people have are enhanced; The effectiveness reason: achievement of development is thoroughly dependent on the free agency of people.

This reasoning underlies the rights-based approach to development and highlights the importance of agency – the exercise of autonomous decision-making power – in establishing the conditions for freedom. Autonomous decision-making is also a prerequisite for both partial and full participation, as Pateman (1970) conceives of them: 4 individuals 4 Partial participation is “[a] process in which two or more parties influence each other in the making of decisions but the final power to decide rests with one party only” (70); while full participation means “[a] process where each individual member of a decision-making body has equal power to determine the outcome of decisions” (71).

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involved in participatory processes must be able to make autonomous choices about their positions on the decisions at hand in any given forum. Taken together, civil and political rights, such as the right to privacy, secure the foundations of a democratic society (Sen:147–8). Without them, development is not freedom. At the centre of Sen’s approach is the idea that wherever development initiatives take place, they should be carried out in a way that is consistent with human rights. While remnants of the debate over whether development initiatives ought to operate consistently with human rights remain alive, it is now essentially defunct. Two trends are particularly relevant to this conclusion. First, the ideological fervour with which development was previously pursued has diminished, to be replaced with disillusionment about adopting any one strategy or paradigm for development practice. The tendency instead is to look pragmatically at specific problems that arise rather than adopting a complete development strategy (Mohan and Stokke, 2010:247). 5 In this context, upholding human rights requires discrete actions across a number of initiatives that are not bound within the strict ideological confines of a particular theory of development. Challenging the prevailing theory is therefore no longer a prerequisite to adopting a rights-based approach to development. Alongside this shift in thinking, “there has been a parallel move towards ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’…[that] has led to the emergence of ‘the local’ as the site of empowerment and hence as a locus of knowledge generation and development intervention” (Mohan and Stokke, 2010: 247–8). Second, the idea of development as a human right itself has gained currency. Moving development into a rights discourse has been facilitated in recent years, particularly by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as MDG8, “a global partnership for development,” recognises the responsibility of states to collectively achieve the MDGs. Development discussions are now focused on the post-2015 agenda (the target date for the MDGs’ achievement) and human rights will be at the centre of that agenda. The UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (2013), for example, has affirmed the importance of “achiev[ing] a pattern of development where dignity and human rights become a reality for all.”

5

The work of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and the Millennium Villages Project are illustrative examples. See Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo. 2011. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York: PublicAffairs, 2011. See also, “Millennium Villages,” accessed August 27, 2014, http://millenniumvillages.org.

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These shifts in thinking about development as a practice have created significantly greater awareness and endorsement of human rights standards among development actors. Oxfam (2014), for example, describes itself as having a rights-based approach, which it defines as a belief that “respect for human rights will help lift people out of poverty and injustice, allow them to assert their dignity and guarantee sustainable development.” Similarly, USAID (2013:5) claims that its strategy on democracy, human rights and governance “makes human rights an explicit component of the Agency’s approach to democratic development.” As Uvin (2007) notes, however, it is not always self-evident what exactly a rights-based development agenda requires. One aspect at least is clear: development actors need to keep apace of changes in the human rights field and the debates occurring within it. The key international human rights treaties, termed the International Bill of Rights, are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). These are supplemented by other significant international human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. While the traditional conception of human rights is that they are owed by the state to individuals, this understanding is gradually being expanded by a notion that non-state actors, including corporations, must also respect human rights. 6 The right to privacy is part of the general body of international human rights law, enshrined in numerous human rights treaties 7 and protected in some form in the majority of states’ constitutions. 8 The right, at its core, recognises that each person is entitled to a private sphere, free from unnecessary or disproportionate interference. As the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression has noted (La Rue, 2013, 22–23) Privacy can be defined as the presumption that individuals should have an area of autonomous development, interaction and liberty, a “private 6

This development is best exemplified by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, UN Doc HR/PUB/11/042011 (2011). 7 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for example, affirms in article 17: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.” 8 Approximately 40 states’ constitutions contain express protection for the right to privacy; nearly 135, for private communications, and more than 40 contain explicit data protection provisions (unpublished research by Privacy International).

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Privacy, as well as being important in and of itself, is also a significant facilitator of other rights, such as freedom of expression. Additionally, data protection, often conceived as a component to the right to privacy, is increasingly receiving recognition as a human right in and of itself, finding separate expression in national constitutions and internationally. The European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, for example, contains a distinct article on the right to the protection of personal data. Applying Sen’s approach to Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), Kleine (2011) developed the “Choice Framework” to map and analyse ICT4D development processes. Kleine recognises that “ideas and ideological principles (for example, hierarchy, democracy, exclusiveness/inclusiveness, open market, transparency, individualism, collective action) are embedded, explicitly but more often implicitly, in every technology” (120). Consequently, given Sen’s emphasis on freedom of choice, it is imperative to identify “what the embedded ideologies in a particular technology are and how they relate to freedom of choice” (125). In considering whether a programme is “geared towards increasing, and not limiting, people’s choices to lead the lives they value” (128), analysing development systems, and planning for enhancing choice, development practitioners rarely consider the right to privacy and what it might require in practical terms. In doing so, they fail to recognise privacy’s role in participation through creating the conditions in which autonomous decision-making – self-governance – becomes possible. Development practitioners must not only take notice of the right to privacy and respect it but also reconceptualise the right as an integral part of development as freedom and an enabler of participation. As Roessler (2005) notes, “To be able to conceive, develop and pursue goals, it is necessary to have dimensions in one’s life that are free from the objections or control of other people” (73). This is true not only in relation to self-

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governance, but also for goals individuals might develop for their community or society: in a civic setting, Schwartz (1994) observes, “important acts of individual creative imagination [in determining what a society should look like] require that citizens be able both to retreat from and to participate in social life” (560).

Existing Standards and Guidelines around Mobile Phones Mobile telephony has transformed communication and dramatically expanded the possibilities for development initiatives to reach their beneficiaries and respond to their needs. Much of this work is taking place in an atmosphere of hope about the possibilities of mobile phones as an important tool for transforming people’s lives for the better. It is also, however, taking place without sufficient thought about the privacy implications of using mobile phones in these initiatives, and often with an unspoken assumption that more data and new technologies equate with better development outcomes and enhanced participation (Hosein and Nyst, 2013: 42-49). This troubling conclusion reflects the lack of attention directed towards the right to privacy by development actors. Innovation in this field is not solely about producing new ideas on how to achieve development objectives; it also requires ideas on how to deploy and use technology in a rights-respecting manner that challenges rather than embeds existing power relationships, and the development of frameworks to comply with human rights obligations. Cornwall (2004) notes that the spaces for community engagement that increasingly accompany development initiatives “may appear as innovations, but are often fashioned out of existing forms through a process of institutional bricolage, using whatever is at hand and re-inscribing existing relationships, hierarchies and rules of the game” (2). Ensuring that beneficiaries are able to control their own data should be a goal for all development actors who are committed to inclusive participatory spaces. As Hussain (2013) has observed, “[i]n the modern global economy, the ability to control and understand data is directly connected to social, political, and economic control” (5). Poor privacy practices prevent beneficiaries from exercising control over their data and place that control in the hands of others. For example, data collected from beneficiaries may be used or shared with third parties without their consent; and data collected for one purpose may be used for others, and in ways that beneficiaries could not have anticipated when they consented to collection. Such practices are disempowering, but because they are often invisible to beneficiaries, they may not be recognised as such.

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Beyond conceptual harm to privacy as a right that requires societal recognition and embedding (and so support from development actors), poor privacy practices in M4D initiatives entail more concrete risks. Such practices mean that beneficiaries might be identified and targeted for persecution; poor practices might also facilitate surveillance, discrimination and other rights-limiting measures. Additionally, initiatives that appear benign at present, such as collecting and managing data around health initiatives (for example, recording compliance with a treatment regime through SMS), generate datasets that could later be used for discriminatory purposes by other actors. The need to observe and uphold the right to privacy is present in all circumstances, but what that requires in practice will differ across contexts. It is not an inflexible standard to be deployed as a barrier to achieving development objectives or an interest that needs to be weighed against those objectives. Rather, in specific circumstances, what privacy requires should be assessed: for example, if collecting data on a person receiving assistance is unnecessary, it should not be collected. Further, the meaning of the right to privacy is not static and depends on cultural and social contexts. Understandings of privacy are also evolving with the advent of new technologies that enable interference with individuals’ private lives to a degree unimaginable even a decade ago. As the Special Rapporteur has observed [i]nnovations in technology have increased the possibilities for communication and protections of free expression and opinion … Technological changes have concurrently increased opportunities for State surveillance and interventions into individuals’ private communications. (2)

There are several existing sets of guidelines and standards around development work and privacy. A consortium of NGOs has developed guidelines on protecting beneficiary data in e-transfer programmes (Cash Learning Partnership, 2013). Some actors also have internal standards, such as the United Nations Global Pulse Privacy and Data Protection Principles (2014). The World Food Programme and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are both known to be developing policy in this area. Nonetheless, the vast majority of organisations in this field either do not have, or have not made public, specific guidelines or operational standards. Related standards that address privacy concerns, albeit in the context of humanitarian work, include the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Professional Standards for Protection Work Carried Out by

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Humanitarian and Human Rights Actors in Armed Conflict and Other Situations of Violence and guidance in OCHA’s report Humanitarianism in the Age of Cyber-warfare: Towards the Principled and Secure Use of Information in Humanitarian Emergencies (OCHA, 2014). Also in the humanitarian field are the GSMA’s Guidelines for the Use of SMS in Natural Disasters (GSMA et al., 2013). These guidelines recognise the importance of keeping text messages confidential and hosted on a secure platform, as well as the need to obtain consent before transferring personal data to third parties. In the context of development work and mobile phones specifically, there is Dialing Down Risks: Mobile Privacy and Information Security in Global Development Projects, a report produced by the New America Foundation (Hussain, 2013). 9 This report represents the best existing articulation of the need to respect privacy in mobile-based initiatives. It outlines values and user rights that emphasise agency and the control of beneficiaries in particular. These include the idea that “users should have to consent to data collection and sharing before any information is collected” and should be able to “access, audit, and amend their personal data” as well as have some recourse for harm caused by data collection or sharing outside the scope of the project; additionally, there should be transparency around the operation of mobile data collection systems and users “should know how and with whom personal information might be shared” and “when new information is collected and/or shared” (14). The report provides five guiding principles: 1. Address surveillance risks: projects should take steps to ensure that user data is secure from third party surveillance. 2. Limit data collection and use: mobile ICT4D projects should limit data collection to what is absolutely necessary for the goals of a project. 3. Promote and facilitate transparency: mobile ICT4D projects should be transparent about what data is collected, how it is shared, and how it might be used in the future. 4. Incorporate user feedback: in addition to addressing user questions and concerns, mobile ICT4D projects should give users the ability to access, amend, and/or delete their data.

9

The Gates Foundation has also released a paper that contains some guidance in this area. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Using Mobile Data for Development. Cartesian, 2014.

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5. Assume responsibility: mobile ICT4D projects should assume accountability for potential risks and harms incurred via their projects and platforms. These principles are grounded in an understanding that, fundamentally, beneficiaries should control their own data and that such control enhances their autonomy and power (and therefore participation). The elaboration of these values, user rights and guiding principles is, however, only a first step towards deepening development actors’ understanding and operationalisation of respect for beneficiaries’ privacy. Local laws or standards may also provide development actors with legal parameters around protecting privacy. However, although many countries include explicit protection for privacy in their constitutions, a great number lack appropriate legal and institutional frameworks to guarantee the right in practice. It is therefore the case that a large number of M4D initiatives are operating under deficient legal regimes, where merely complying with the law is an insufficient guarantee that privacy will be protected. For example, the majority of African states do not have data protection laws in place (Banisar, 2014). The picture is slowly changing, but has yet to translate into laws and data protection bodies that are effective in protecting privacy on the ground. 10 The role of the private sector is also relevant, as M4D initiatives inevitably entail partnerships or connections with mobile network operators, providers and developers. Private sector companies also have a responsibility to protect privacy in their practices towards customers, how they treat personal and communications data, and in their relationships with government. In some cases, companies have made explicit and meaningful commitments to protecting their customers’ privacy, often as part of a broader commitment to respecting human rights. In other cases, no such commitment exists and companies may engage in activities inconsistent with respecting human rights, such as using exploitative marketing techniques or inappropriately sharing customer data with third parties. Any development actor seeking to partner with a telecommunications company should assess the company’s internal policies (and, ideally, seek out indications that the company operates in line with the framework 10 As of July 2013, the following countries had enacted and set up Data Protection Commissions: Gabon, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Benin, Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, Angola and Egypt. In other countries, there are on-going drafting processes for the development of data protection laws, for instance, in Niger, Mali, Guinea, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya.

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provided by the UN Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights), but also understand the relevant domestic legal framework under which it operates. In some jurisdictions, even if mobile network operators prioritise their customers’ privacy, their ability to push back against illegitimate government demands may be limited or they may not even know what data the government is accessing. In June 2014, the global mobile telecommunications giant Vodafone released a report outlining its practices around cooperation with law enforcement in 29 countries. The report noted that while in most countries “Vodafone maintains full operational control over the technical infrastructure used to enable lawful interception upon receipt of an agency or authority demand” (66) [I]n a small number of countries the law dictates that specific agencies and authorities must have direct access to an operator’s network, bypassing any form of operational control over lawful interception on the part of the operator. In those countries, Vodafone will not receive any form of demand for lawful interception access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link.

Additionally, there are multiple jurisdictions in which it is illegal for a telecommunications provider to acknowledge it has received requests for access to customers’ communications. Further, mobile network operators may be required, as a matter of law, to retain extensive amounts of information about the communications that pass through their networks, often for long periods of time, permitting retrospective querying by government officials. 11 As the Special Rapporteur has noted, “[i]n many states, mandatory data retention is facilitating massive collection of communications data that can later be filtered and analysed” (39).

Mobile Money Transfers The term “mobile money transfers” refers to “any payment or fund that is transferred from one person or organisation’s ‘mobile wallet’ or bank account to another through mobile phone” (Smith et al., 2011: 6). Mobile transactions are an increasingly popular way of delivering cash transfers to 11

For example, Honduras’s 2011 Special Law on Interception of Private Communication requires a telecommunications provider to retain, for a period of five years, all of the data about the activities of every user. This includes the telephone numbers engaged in a conversation, the duration and time a call was made, and in the case of mobiles, the location from which the call was made or from where a text message was sent.

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beneficiaries. The degree to which the organisation distributing funds is involved in collecting data on recipients varies. Perhaps the best known mobile money system is M-Pesa, operated by Safaricom in Kenya, to which more than a third of the population is subscribed. M-Pesa has been used by a variety of development organisations in their initiatives. One example was a cash transfer programme undertaken jointly by Concern Worldwide and Oxfam in Nairobi that began in 2009 (Harvey, 2012). 12 In that programme, as part of the monitoring process (7) Concern monitored every recipient monthly over the eight-month period. It recorded a wide range of information, including: the household’s area of origin; how long they had been in the slum and why they came; food frequency and diversity by age group; household expenditure, savings and assets; experiences with the M-Pesa delivery system; how the money was used; including experiences and challenges, e.g., pressure to repay debts or conflict over the money. Oxfam interviewed a small sample of recipients each month, asking questions about food security, water, soap, school fees, rent, clothes, medicines, transport, gifts, and loan repayments.

It is possible that Oxfam and Concern Worldwide were cognisant of the privacy implications of the mobile money programme and implemented effective and appropriate measures to mitigate risk. However, the fact that such measures are not mentioned in a report describing the programme itself illustrates that privacy concerns were not prioritised, at least in programme evaluation. The following discussion is not intended to be a critique of this particular programme but to provide a concrete example as background to illustrate how seemingly innocuous programmes utilising mobiles may have unforeseen implications for beneficiaries’ privacy and, consequently, their autonomy in decisionmaking. Using M-Pesa rather than cash means beneficiaries are personally identifiable (Donovan, 2012: 2559) since Kenya has compulsory SIM card registration: all beneficiaries would have been required to register their SIMs in order to receive assistance. This is not an unusual situation: at least eighty countries, including thirty-seven in Africa, have laws requiring that individuals register their personal information with their network

12

This illustrative example was selected based on the availability of public documentation surrounding this particular program, rather than through any systematic analysis of practice. Its selection is not intended as a comment on its success or otherwise.

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provider prior to the activation of pre-paid SIM cards (GSMA, 2013). 13 Failing to register a SIM card could result in service being terminated. As the Special Rapporteur has noted, compulsory SIM card registration laws are “reportedly facilitating the establishment of extensive databases of user information, eradicating the potential for anonymity of communications, enabling location-tracking, and simplifying communications surveillance” (La Rue, 2013: 70). In countries without data protection legislation, the information held in SIM registration databases can be widely accessed and shared across government departments. In such circumstances, the information can then be “matched with [individuals’] voting preferences or health data, enabling governments to identify and target political opposition, for example, or people living with HIV/AIDS” (Nyst, 2012). Although awareness of surveillance practices is growing – particularly amongst civil society groups and human rights defenders – many people willingly hand over extensive information to government bodies without considering the choices before them; SIM registration may be seen as inevitable, and necessary for law enforcement and fraud prevention (Nyst, 2012), despite a lack of empirical evidence to suggest that mandatory registration reduces criminal activity (GSMA, 2013). In the Kenyan case, SIM card registration is linked to a central government database, the Integrated Population Registration System (IPRS), which authenticates individuals’ identities. The IPRS “brings together over a dozen databases held by various government agencies. It combines data from the birth and death register, citizenship register, ID card register, aliens register, passport register and the marriage and divorce register” (HumanIPO, 2013). Disconcertingly, the IPRS Director has observed, “[w]e now have the 360 degree view of any citizen above the age of 18 years” (HumanIPO, 2012). The IPRS also includes information on non-citizens. Sending payments via M-Pesa therefore requires that, in order to access services legally, beneficiaries are checked against a database that combines multiple pieces of information about their lives. This may not be a known risk, and if it is, those in vulnerable situations (for example, migrants) may be excluded from the programme through fear of identification and persecution. Alternatively, beneficiaries may simply be unable to receive assistance because they lack the identity documents necessary to register. 13

For example, Uganda’s Regulation of Interception of Communications Act 2010 and the Regulation of Interception of Communications Instrument, No. 42 of 2011 require all mobile phone users and internet modem owners to register their SIM cards.

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Safaricom, the company that operates M-Pesa dominates the market: “the network power of M-PESA compels adoption of a single standard that is privately owned and uniquely biased” (Donovan, 2012: 2567–8). In the absence of effective data protection standards, sending information via M-Pesa means opening up beneficiaries to risks regarding Safaricom’s use of their information. Additionally, M-Pesa itself can be used to identify users without their permission merely by knowing a user’s mobile number (www.dw.de 2013). Considering the available facts, a variety of other questions, based on the principles articulated by the New America Foundation, might also be asked: x

x

x

Lists of beneficiaries were sent to Safaricom: o How were the lists sent and who received them at Safaricom? o Were the lists retained and stored securely, or destroyed? o Did beneficiaries understand that Safaricom would receive information about them? o Were they able to request access to that information? o Could information about them be deleted on their request? o Were beneficiaries required to enter into a contract with Safaricom, and if so, did they know how to leave the contract? Safaricom kiosk staff provided money to beneficiaries: o Were staff members trained in privacy practices and issues of information security? Oxfam and Concern also collected a large amount of information from beneficiaries beyond what was necessary for them to be registered with M-Pesa: o Was it necessary for the success of the programme to collect all of this information? o What happened to the information after collection? o How was it stored and for how long was it retained? o Were there procedures in place for beneficiaries to access, amend and delete their information? o Did third parties have access to the data and did beneficiaries consent to such access? o How did beneficiaries provide feedback on the project to Oxfam and Concern? o What redress was available to beneficiaries for privacy breaches?

These are not the types of questions that automatically occur to development actors to ask when planning, implementing and evaluating

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programmes such as the one described: this needs to change. All M4D initiatives should take the idea of participatory processes seriously: when beneficiaries cannot (or do not know how to) exercise control over their own information, they cannot make decisions autonomously. More concretely, failing to consider these questions may mean that development actors unwittingly (or even negligently) facilitate rights-limiting measures, such as discrimination on religious or ethnic grounds. Releasing data that appears to assist in worthy initiatives can have unintended consequences. For example, when the mobile network operator Orange released a dataset of 2.5 billion anonymised text messages and phone calls from Côte d’Ivoire, researchers analysed mobile phone users’ movements and were able to redesign bus routes; however, the same data also allowed for the identification of the movements of particular religious or ethnic groups. 14

Where To From Here? There is an understandable desire among practitioners for a checklist of considerations or more detailed guidance aimed at addressing privacy and data protection in particular types of M4D initiatives. This chapter has drawn attention to some resources but research in this area is in its infancy and practical guidance is limited. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to set out a concrete research agenda or provide the guidance sought, it is clear at least that those whose work focuses on critically understanding development and the international development community should start conversations with those working at the intersection of human rights and technology who are grappling with related issues. For practitioners, the first step should be to begin thinking and talking about the right to privacy and its relationship with their work, particularly in terms of participation. This is already happening to some degree, but the terms of the discussion need to become more complex so that it is not only the most obvious risks, such as insecure data storage, that are recognised and explored. Even seemingly successful development initiatives may unwittingly facilitate surveillance, discriminatory practices, exploitative marketing or other rights-limiting measures. In many cases, violations of the right to 14

For a discussion of human mobility and mobile phone data, see, de Montjoye, YA., C.A. Hidalgo, M. Verleysen, and V.D. Blondel. “Unique in the Crowd: The Privacy Bounds of Human Mobility” Nature, Scientific Reports 3, 2013. The authors conclude, “We show that the uniqueness of human mobility traces is high and that mobility datasets are likely to be re-identifiable using information only on a few outside locations.”

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privacy will not be apparent from the documentation evaluating a programme. Often these violations will not even be apparent to those carrying out or evaluating the programme. For example, a development actor may have helped to generate data (for instance, by requiring beneficiaries to subscribe to a particular mobile network provider) that could be used to identify and profile vulnerable groups, facilitating state surveillance, but this will not be something that programme evaluation techniques identify. More insidiously, through poor privacy practices an M4D initiative may foster habits and perpetuate understandings of power that hinder autonomous decision-making, thereby limiting participation. For instance, if an M4D initiative fails to respect basic data protection principles (such as seeking informed consent to data use, sharing and retention), it implicitly supports the idea that information should be controlled not by the individuals to whom that information pertains but by those giving assistance or providing a service. In this respect, it takes power away from beneficiaries in favour of the development actor; it also helps to generate an expectation that beneficiaries should give up control of information if they wish to receive assistance in other settings. Instead, M4D initiatives should operate on the understanding that individuals should have control over their own information. When that understanding is shared by beneficiaries and translated to a broader social and political context, it can aid in establishing participatory processes. As Oxfam America has noted, “[m]ainstreaming a rights-based approach into our organisations is a complex transition. It cannot simply be decreed and implemented” (Offenheiser Holcombe, 2003: 274). What is required is buy-in from international and local partners in developing and implementing appropriate standards to guide the use of mobile phones. Further impetus for change comes from the fact that if the development community does not itself work harder in this area, there is a real risk that guidelines and standards will be imposed by funders or other third parties, producing a framework that lacks community buy-in. Advancing a development agenda that fails to protect privacy diminishes the possibilities of self-governance and undermines the objectives of development as freedom. This chapter has highlighted the need to adopt a privacy-respecting approach to development within the general framework of a rights-based approach. Such an approach enables social participation through selfgovernance grounded in individuals’ empowerment. The question remains as to who within the development community is in the best position to advance the discussion on protecting privacy. Stronger standards and

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better practices are required. This is a mantle that must be taken up before development actors unwittingly create legacy systems of surveillance or embed practices in communities that limit their possibilities for selfgovernance. The failure to adopt an approach that respects the right to privacy undermines the capacity of those development actors who seek to empower target groups to become participatory citizens within democratic societies.

References Banisar, David. “National Comprehensive Data Protection/Privacy Laws and Bills 2014 Map” (January 28, 2014). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1951416 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1951416 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Using Mobile Data for Development. Cartesian, 2014. Cash Learning Partnership. Protecting Beneficiary Privacy: Principles and Operational Standards for the Secure Use of Personal Data in Cash and e-Transfer Programmes. Oxford: Cash Learning Partnership, 2013. Donovan, Kevin. “Mobile Money, More Freedom? The Impact of MPESA’s Network Power on Development as Freedom.” International Journal of Communication 6, 2012. GSMA. The Mandatory Registration of Prepaid SIM Card Users: A White Paper. GSMA, 2013. GSMA Disaster Response, Souktel and The Qatar Foundation. Towards a Code of Conduct: for the Use of SMS, Guidelines for the Use of in Natural Disasters: SMS in Natural Disasters. GSMA, 3013. Harvey, Claire. Cash Transfers in Nairobi’s Slums: Improving Food Security and Gender Dynamics. In Oxfam Programme Insights, Oxford: Oxfam GB, 2012. High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development: The Report of the HighLevel Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. New York: United Nations Publications, 2013. Hosein, Gus and Carly Nyst. Aiding Surveillance. Privacy International: London, 2013. HumanIPO. “Nowhere to Hide for Adult Kenyans as Registration Ministry Automates.” November 28, 2012.

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http://www.humanipo.com/news/2587/Nowhere-to-hide-for-adultKenyans-as-registration-ministry-automates/ —. “Kenya’s automated population registry (IPRS) unmasked.” February 1, 2013. http://www.humanipo.com/news/3685/feature-kenyas-automatedpopulation-registry-iprs-unmasked/ Hussain, Hibah. Dialing Down Risks: Mobile Privacy and Information Security in Global Development Projects. New America Foundation, 2013. Kleine, Dorothea. “The Capability Approach and the ‘Medium of Choice’: Steps Towards Conceptualising Information and Communication Technologies for Development.” Ethics and Information Technology 13, 2011. —. Technologies of Choice?: ICTs, Development, and the Capabilities Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. La Rue, Frank. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. UN Doc A/HRC/23/40, 2013. Nyst, Carly. “With New Promise Comes New Perils: ICTs and the Right to Privacy in Africa.” Privacy International, November 30, 2012. https://www.privacyinternational.org/?q=node/404 Mohan, Giles and Kristian Stokke. “Participatory Development and Empowerment: the Dangers of Localism.” Third World Quarterly 21(2), 2010. Offenheiser Raymond and Susan Holcombe. “Challenges and Opportunities in Implementing a Rights-Based Approach to Development: An Oxfam America Perspective.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 32, 2003. OCHA. Humanitarianism in the Age of Cyber-warfare: Towards the Principled and Secure Use of Information in Humanitarian Emergencies. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2014. Oxfam. 2014. “Our Commitment to Human Rights” Accessed August 27, http://www.oxfam.org/en/our-commitment-human-rights. Pateman, C. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Roessler, Beate. The Value of Privacy. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005. Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Servaes, Jan. Communication for Development: One World, Multiple Cultures. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, 1999.

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Smith, G., I. MacAuslan, S. Butters, and M. Tromme. New Technologies in Cash Transfer Programming and Humanitarian Assistance. A Study by Concern Worldwide, Oxford Policy Management (OPM) and the Partnership for Research in International Affairs and Development (PRIAD). Oxford: Cash Learning Partnership, 2011. Schwartz, Paul M. “Privacy and Participation: Personal Information and Public Sector Regulation in the United States” Iowa Law Review, 1994:553. U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID Strategy on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance. Washington, 2013. UN Global Pulse. “Our Privacy and Data Protection Principles.” Accessed August 27, 2014. http://www.unglobalpulse.org/privacy-and-dataprotection Uvin, Peter. “From the Right to Development to the Rights-Based Approach.” Development in Practice 17, 2007. Vodafone Group Plc. Sustainability Report 2013/14: Law Enforcement Disclosure Report.2014. “Privacy Concerns in Kenya as Users Turn to M-Pesa to Catch Cheating Partners” July 12, 2013. http://www.dw.com/en/privacy-concerns-inkenya-as-users-turn-to-m-pesa-to-catch-cheating-partners/a-16947446

INDEX

Access, 3, 30, 31, 35, 70, 77, 78, 83, 92, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 115, 118, 128, 129, 136, 137, 160 challenges, 139 constraint, 125 health services, 4, 32, 74 healthcare, 74 ICT, 66 information, 4, 38, 41, 56, 138, 140 Internet, 20, 21, 66 limited, 8 mobile, 127, 141 mobile phones, 11, 19, 32, 38, 79, 85 non-access, 93 phones, 73, 75 services, 24, 159 smartphones, 39 technology, 20, 34, 38, 56, 132, 139 universal, 82, 130 water services, 126 women, 76, 89 Africa, 10, 55, 56, 73, 75, 82, 85, 89, 158 East, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, 134 South, 3, 69, 74, 91, 156 sub-Saharan, 21, 37, 74, 81, 126 West, 103 App development, 103, 104, 108, 116 distribution, 105, 107, 116, 117 market and internationalisation, 109, 110, 116 stores, 105, 107, 108, 109, 116, 117 Apps exclusion, 117

Argentina, 3, 11, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117 Arnstein, 5, 6, 7, 8, 22, 24, 25, 32, 35, 131 Citizen feedback, 130, 132, 137 Commercial orientation of the Internet, 107 Communication, 1, 4, 8, 10, 18, 20, 23, 31, 34, 37, 40, 41, 82, 85, 101, 105, 106, 107, 114, 118, 127, 133, 137, 153, 154 and media, 30 as participation, 38 costs, 32, 140 digital, 115 distance, 131 face-to-face, 84 for Development, 17, 19 health, 74, 75, 79, 83, 93 identity, 111, 112, 113, 116, 117 Information Communication Technologies, 19, 152 infrastructures, 11, 21, 36 media, 106 mobile, 20, 26, 80, 81, 89, 92, 103 mobile technologies, 17, 25 partial, 88 right to, 102 technologies, 24, 58, 78, 100, 130 technology-aided, 12 Communicative ecology, 83 Comparative analysis, 129 Cornwall, 7, 8, 9, 22, 23, 24, 40, 59, 68, 76, 77, 78, 93, 101, 117, 153 Cultural, 73, 75, 86, 89, 103, 106, 112, 115, 154

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168 background, 59 boundaries, 93 content, 105, 111 contexts, 100 diversity, 38 events, 113, 114 norm, 24 processes, 83 socio, 10 structures, 25 transformations, 78

Data protection, 147, 149, 151, 152, 156, 159, 160, 161, 162 security, 12, 160 Decolonisation of media, 99, 102, 112, 118 Development, 23, 57, 155 app, 116, 117 communication, 20, 26, 99, 154 contexts, 102 democracy, 152 discourse, 5 gender, 73 human, 1 ICT4D, 2, 19, 152 M4D, 2, 17, 18, 22, 129 mainstream, 3, 9, 12, 18 mobile application, 108 mobile technologies, 2, 3, 4 mobiles, 8, 21, 29, 56 orthodoxy, 23 participation, 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, 18, 22, 25, 40, 41, 76, 150 practise, 5 rights-based approach, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151 socioeconomic, 10, 24, 33, 56 technologies, 4 tools, 17, 18 Digital divide, 28, 31, 38, 66, 102 Digital inclusion, 12, 99, 100, 103 Education, 17, 67, 70, 78 access, 89

activities, 56 background, 87 formal, 61, 80, 86 institutions, 2 media, 82 mHealth, 31 mLearning, 35 non-access, 86 participation, 76 practices, 1 programmes, 21 sectors, 1, 26, 35 services, 38, 127 systems, 75 Full participation, 34, 59, 75, 77, 86, 149 Gender, 80, 130 access, 85, 86 affiliation, 20 barriers, 74 disparities, 93 dynamics, 76 identity, 40, 89 inequalities, 24, 75, 78 norms, 132 order, 25 power, 77 roles, 89, 127 social, 59, 74 women, 24 Ghana, 3, 10, 32, 68, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 89, 91, 92, 156 Governance, 17, 27, 28, 29, 37, 38, 39, 67, 151, 153 challenges, 127 eGovernance, 36 initiatives, 3 mGovernance, 10, 30 mobile use, 30 mobile water governance, 11 participation, 9, 24 poor, 126 sector, 1, 26

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self-, 147, 148, 152, 162, 163 space, 7 water, 12, 126 water governance, 128, 134, 140 water sector, 11 weaknesses, 126

Ladder of citizen participation, 6, 22 Ladder of participation, 131 Livelihood, 9, 17, 24, 26, 27, 28, 33, 34, 37, 39 Localisation of media production, 111, 116

Hand pump mechanics (HPM), 135 Health, 27, 28, 37, 67, 88 budget, 81 care, 31, 73, 74, 79, 82, 87, 99 communication, 75, 83, 92 data, 159 information services, 11, 25, 32, 78, 82, 85 initiatives, 11, 32, 73, 154 mHealth, 10, 11, 29, 31, 32, 73, 74, 75, 91, 92, 93 mobile, 74 mobile phone, 74 outcomes, 75 participation, 9, 12, 24, 39 sector, 1, 10, 17, 26, 31 service delivery, 3 services, 4, 24, 32, 74, 127 systems, 83 workers, 31, 32, 35, 40, 82, 84 World Health Organization (WHO), 74 HIV/AIDS, 31, 68, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 91, 92, 159 Human rights, 114, 148, 150, 151, 153, 156, 159, 161

M4D, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37, 39, 88, 99, 100, 118, 125, 128, 129, 132, 133, 140, 141, 148, 149, 154, 156, 161, 162 M4D conference, 2, 5, 18, 26 Maji Matone, 132 MajiVoice, 135, 137, 138, 139 Men, 24, 32, 79, 81, 89, 90, 91, 130 mGovernance, 10 mHealth, 93 mLearning, 10, 30, 39, 40 mLivelihood, 10 M-Maji, 135, 138, 139 Mobile technologies, 1, 3, 12, 17, 20, 31, 36, 40, 41 Mobile applications, 3, 21, 55, 56, 69, 125, 128 Mobile Communication Technologies, 17, 18 Mobile for development, 55, 56, 70 Mobile media inclusion, 101, 102, 103, 115 Mobile money transfers, 147, 149, 157 Mobile phone mediation, 83 Mobile phones, 1, 2, 3, 10, 19, 20, 24, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 92, 100, 115, 117, 125, 128, 129, 135, 147, 148, 153, 155, 162 Mobile technologies, 4 Mobiles 4 Water (M4W), 135 M-Pesa, 132, 158, 159, 160

Indigenous media, 11, 111, 112, 113, 114, 117 Interaction, 3, 5, 21, 37, 40, 59, 61, 90, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135, 137, 139, 140, 141, 151 people-to-people, 77 Internet democratisation, 106, 107 Kenya, 3, 33, 36, 83, 127, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135, 137, 156, 158

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Chapter Seven

Non-access mobile phones, 86 Participation, 11, 17, 24, 27, 36, 38, 55, 56, 60, 74, 80, 99, 100, 101, 107, 118, 132, 133, 140, 147, 150, 152, 153, 156, 161, 162 broader, 60, 67, 68, 78 community, 74, 125, 126, 127, 128, 139 doing of, 8, 12 ecology, 106 full, 22, 25, 34, 37, 59, 75, 76, 77, 78, 86, 87, 88, 93, 131, 141, 149 in development, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, 13, 22, 23, 25, 41, 76, 77, 88 media, 106, 116 mobile, 1, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 18, 19, 25, 26, 29, 37, 39, 40, 125, 128, 129, 134, 139, 141 non, 6, 8, 22 partial, 33, 59, 68, 70, 73, 75, 76, 78, 83, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 130, 131, 141, 149 phone participation, 81, 84 practices, 12 pseudo, 25, 26, 131 situated, 10, 129 spaces, 117 token, 7, 8, 25, 32, 37 wider, 75, 85, 92, 93 Participatory methods, 8 Pateman, 5, 7, 9, 12, 22, 25, 33, 37, 59, 68, 75, 76, 129, 130, 147, 149 Phone participation, 81, 84 Phone access, 85 Power, 6, 40, 92, 118, 130, 148, 153, 160, 162 arrangements, 75 as participation, 6, 7, 76, 156 decision-making, 149 delegated, 7, 8, 22, 23, 25, 26, 38, 39, 131 distribution, 5, 8, 34, 147 equal, 59, 76, 131, 141

gender, 77 inequalities, 116 lines, 9 relations, 23, 59, 76, 77, 101, 131 sharing, 5, 17 social, 106, 116 structures, 25, 100, 113, 115 struggles, 100 Privacy, 34, 78, 86, 87, 88, 149, 157, 158 and development, 12, 148, 150 breaches, 160 data, 3 data protection, 147, 154, 156, 161 guidelines, 147 issues, 11 M4D, 12 mobile, 155 participation, 147 patients, 11 practices, 153, 160, 162 protect, 12 respect of, 12 the right to, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154 violations, 161 Public policy, 154 Security, 30, 33, 34, 37, 158 Senegal, 2, 3, 10, 26, 28, 55, 56, 60, 69, 156 SIM card registration, 37, 158, 159 Social inclusion, 105 Spaces, 8, 40, 93, 99, 102, 153 Standards and guidelines around privacy, 12, 147 Surveillance, 37, 148, 154, 155, 159, 161, 163 Technical challenges, 19 Token participation, 7, 8, 25, 32, 37

Privacy and M4D Initiatives Uganda, 2, 3, 4, 8, 26, 28, 36, 85, 90, 127, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135, 136, 139, 159 Unique subscriber penetration rate, 130 Ureport, 132 Users, 39, 88, 105, 109, 115, 128, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 155, 160 access, 103 access to technology, 34 accountability, 12 basic use, 62 content, 107, 110 cost, 8 Facebook zero, 21 freedom, 13 illiterate, 10, 63 interests, 116, 117 limited-use, 64 local, 99 low-income, 106 low-literate, 55, 60, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70

171

mobile, 3, 102 mobile phone, 38, 58, 75, 78, 79, 80, 87, 148, 159, 161 mobile technology, 12, 36, 78 non-literate, 86 non-users, 100 participation, 8, 19, 37, 38, 59, 83, 92, 101, 131 potential, 19, 132, 133, 134 practices, 58 privacy, 12 semi-literate, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70 user-centred design, 132 water, 126, 129, 135, 136, 139 WASH, 125, 126 Water service delivery, 11, 127, 134 Web 2.0, 101, 106, 110, 116 Women, 24, 29, 32, 33, 38, 56, 57, 76, 79, 81, 86, 89, 90, 91, 93, 127, 130, 139 Water governance, 126