Comments on: African techno-euphoria and the origins of Kenyan mobile exceptionalism

By: Susan Johnson

Susan Johnson — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:08:17 +0000

Duncan – another angle on Kenya’s exceptionalism with respect to M-Pesa is that it seamlessly facilitates the kinds of inter-personal transactions that Kenyans undertake through their social networks. This is the underlying demand side of the equation to which supply perhaps unexpectedly responded! The points made above about regulatory open-ness, Safaricom as a near monopoly in Kenya, the energy and appropriate incentives that Safaricom put in place for the building of the agent network etc are all fine but don’t forget why people want and need such a service. See http://technology.cgap.org/2012/04/19/what-does-the-rapid-uptake-of-mobile-money-transfer-in-kenya-really-mean-for-financial-inclusion/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cgaptechnology+%28CGAP+Technology+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

By: JQG

JQG — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:27:31 +0000

Thanks Duncan, nice piece.

Isn’t it all about having an “enabling” environment or at least being able to advocate to open space for one? That’s what makes Kenya exceptional and what make other countries “exceptional”, but on the extreme opposite…

Why did M-PESA succeed in Kenya and Haiti or Afghanistan seem to not take similar type of systems to the same level of success? That would be an interesting comparative analysis to do and it is probably somewhere out there.

The interesting thing to me is most of these groundbreaking changes are always prompted by the war industry (i.e. internet) or the private sector.
In the development and humanitarian sectors we try to keep ourselves as far as possible from those carrying weapons, but we also seem not too interested in learning more and better from practices from the private sector that can improve the satisfaction of our “customers” -that is i the event we feel they really have a right to say and make us accountable.

Long story short:

1. Amazing but not amazed to see more and more coming from the so-called “bottom-up”
2. We have so much to learn and much more to catch up with.
3. it doesn’t matter what we think, the (r)evolution on the ICT started many years ago and it is up to the sector to really engage or continue being “left in the dark”
4. What we see is “community resilience” and it is happening without any hum/dev types really “supporting” it.
5. The best we can do is engage in the conversation, and invest in innovation -and that is not tech, but an institutional attitude!

Apologies for the mix of topics and issues but the subject is certainly fascinating.

Great to have more and more people writing and interested in it, worth the effort.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:03:10 +0000

I was involved in M-PESA at the beginning. The reasons I see for it being a success in Kenya are
1. the banks didn’t realise what was happening and were too late organising political power to stop M-PESA
2. Safaricom was a trusted brand in a country with few trustworthy institutions
3. the high level of literacy in Kenya. Being able to read a phone screen is a prerequisite.
4. a small, inter-company, very dedicated team with excellent, everybody to everybody communication and working ridiculous hours for several years
5. an incredible team of resourceful and energetic women in Kenya responsible for rolling out and promoting M-PESA in the early days.
The last of these in particular doesn’t get the attention it deserves. I’ve seen M-PESA rollouts in several countries and no others had such a strong initial push behind them as happened in Kenya. Unfortunately, as time has gone on M-PESA rollouts to other countries have become bogged down in company politics and big company practices.

By: Darius

Darius — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 14:24:09 +0000

The Ethiopian government could learn a thing or two from Kenyan investment and deregulation. It is amazing to me the number of countries that still throttle bandwidth by keeping the pipeline to the outside world in the hands of a crappy state monopoly. Sometimes this is about controlling information, more often protecting a pathetic stream of revenues to the state enterprise and its cronies. The costs of those policies were bad when it was State bottling plants or dairy farms, the opportunity cost to a country of essentially throttling the information age is incalculable.

By: John Magrath

John Magrath — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:02:48 +0000

One interesting development is the linking of mobile phone charging (a necessary service which can provide a good business opportunity for a local entrepreneur) with the spread of solar PV (solar panels or lanterns). Customers increasingly demand solar products that have a phone charging capability so in that way the two are mutually reinforcing. The Ashden organisation has awarded several examples that do this in east Africa and wider, like Barefoot Power, dLight, Rural Energy Foundation, Zara Solar (Tanzania) and Deng (Ghana). See http://www.ashden.org/

By: Reclaim Education

Reclaim Education — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:55:40 +0000

Why the need for a pinch of salt? Who said that tech fixes are a pain-free substitute for sorting out inequality, injustice and exclusion? Why did you feel the need to say that they seldom are?

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:55:18 +0000

You might be interested in the chapter we wrote on mobile money for a recent World Bank book: http://www.worldbank.org/ict/ic4d2012

I think on the topic of exceptionalism: give it time, and broaden away from the mobile. Cards are increasingly becoming relevant and mobiles will probably be seen more as just one channel, interacting with others.

By: Reclaim Education

Reclaim Education — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:48:50 +0000

Sorry to sound sceptical about your scepticism Duncan but it sounds as if you are uncomfortable and disbelieving of any interventions that do not involve the unimpeachable efforts of Oxfam or similar western pillars of the neo-liberal interventionary development status quo.

This theme of bitterness about non western NGO led success stories is noticeable in your previous posts on education, religion, humanitarian space and China in Africa among others.

Are you ever needlessly miserablilist, patronising and critical of positive progress and reports by Oxfam in this way – ie “tech fixes are seldom a pain-free substitute for sorting out inequality, injustice and exclusion”, “techno-phoria”, “pinch of salt”?

Coupled with your recent “rant” (your word) at academia I really think the liberal, rationalist values you and Oxfam stand for are not reflected in your recent posts.

I intend no insult, these are just sincere efforts to encourage Oxfam to adopt a more self-critical approach. This self-criticism is most vital in Oxfam’s involvement with schools as partisan propaganda can so easily pass as legitimate education, unforgiveable when dealing with kids.

By: Aidan

Aidan — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:26:36 +0000

You say (tech fixes are seldom a pain-free substitute for sorting out inequality, injustice and exclusion). Agreed. But would you agree that a BIG part of Kenya’s exceptionalism was friendly telecoms and banking/financial regulation? I heard Kenya’s Central Bank Governor (Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u) say in a speech that he was asked by the banks to stop Safaricom from encroaching on their payments business and to essentially preserve their (banks) monopoly of this service. He didn’t, thank goodness!

Secondly, Safaricom’s massive market share produced ‘network externalities’ (i.e., the high probability that someone you want to send your money to is on the network, so you will also join it and M-PESA).

By: Eddy

Eddy — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:15:50 +0000

Thanks Duncan. Here’s a precis of some research on one aspect of Kenyan exceptionalism – mobile money. Not sure if the full paper is available. Three headlines: ‘progressive’ central bank regulation, market share of main operator and management focus within that operator on people and their networks not tech.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201207180104.html