Message-ID: <45233878EF@fs1.ec.man.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 12:40:04 BST From: Dr Richard Heeks <mailto:mzdid10@FS1.EC.MAN.AC.UK> Subject: Underestimating Wired Africa To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
UNDERESTIMATING WIRED AFRICAEstimates of Internet connectivity show Africa to be the least wired continent by some distance. Whilst I don't doubt that Africa is lagging, I wonder if we aren't underestimating the availability of email and Internet access.
Dealing just with email, I've been struck by the number of colleagues from Africa who can now correspond with me electronically. Yet very few have their own accounts: they use their organisation's one account; they use the account of a family member; they use the account of a friend, acquaintance or neighbour. The model we may hold in the West - of one email account serving one individual - is therefore inappropriate for Africa.
A very small and thoroughly unscientific survey of accounts in Africa shows that from 5 up to 40 people make use of single email accounts. If we pluck an average figure of 10 users per account from the air, and if we add in the Hotmail, Yahoo and other global accounts increasingly used in Africa, it means formal statistics may be seriously underestimating the extent to which Africa is `wired'.
This, in turn, means we may be underestimating the current reach and potential of applications like e-commerce and e- government, and underestimating the Internet-related economic and social changes that are now taking place in Africa.
Richard Heeks
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Richard Heeks Senior Lecturer, Development Informatics Institute for Development Policy & Management University of Manchester Precinct Centre Manchester M13 9GH U.K. Phone: +44-161-275-2870 Fax: +44-161-273-8829 Email: mailto:Richard.Heeks@man.ac.uk IDPM Web: http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm ---------------------------------------------------------------------