Missed Connections

There was no internet at work today. In reality, this should not come as a shock. There are power outages and the internet goes down frequently all over the world, but especially in many developing countries. Other places I've lived and worked it has been a common occurrence to be without internet for days or weeks on end. But my experience at UNDP in Addis has been different. Miraculously, the internet never goes out. And it’s fast. This is an anomaly in Ethiopia where internet access is sub-par at best. I’m not sure how they manage it (most likely a direct satellite connection), and despite the numerous firewalls and passwords to prevent staff from using it for personal use, I’ve been grateful for its reliability. And so today, I’m at a bit of a loss. Email, the intranet, online research, etc..  are all part of my daily work activities and I am finding myself quickly running out of projects I can complete offline. Anywhere else, I would have already had documents and reports downloaded on a USB, prepared for the frequent occurrence of days spent offline, but I’ve been spoiled and have been caught off guard.

Having read this recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about cell phones, the internet and IT in development. I’ve always had a strong interest in health focused development initiatives and MHealth (improving health outcomes through the use of cell phones to improve access, adherence, attendance and awareness) is a constant topic of conversation in discussions of new initiatives and ways forward. The same holds for monitoring and evaluation, my other main area of interest and the reason behind my current role at UNDP. Cell phones and tablets are being used to improve accuracy of M&E in the field, to crowdsource surveys, and be faster and more responsive in planning, monitoring, and reporting on initiatives.

But while all these new innovations sound great on paper – I’m not sure how successfully they always play out in the field.

When I was in Lesotho, trying to use a cell phone in rural areas often required walking to the top of the closest hill. The families we visited weren’t receiving the text messages the service providers kept sending me about getting my child immunized. If they had the luxury of having a cell phone within the household, the battery was probably dead and there was no way to charge it anytime soon.

In Ethiopia, you may not speak Amharic but you can definitely recognize the sing-song voice of the Ethio-telecom operator telling you the network is busy and to try again later. Less than 2.5% of the country has access to the internet (compared to 40% in neighbouring Kenya) and those who do pay for it at a premium. In the past VoIP technology – such as Skype – was banned and today you are lucky if you can find an internet connection with enough bandwidth to handle it. Over the last few months 3G SIM cards have only been available on the black market. I’m not sure any kind of mobile/IT development initiative will work in Ethiopia anytime soon.

But it’s still exciting to explore the potential, and see the success stories happening in well-connected African nations like Kenya and South Africa. Hopefully with all of Ethiopia’s promising economic growth, they will be able to pick up the pace with the lagging IT infrastructure as well.