Spreading Innovation - Jan Baxewanos

Spreading Innovation Inclusion and Empowerment of the Poor through digital Communication

by Jan Baxewanos 1128327

Supervisor: Mooshammer Helge

Bachelor Architecture Technical University of Vienna E264 Institut für Kunst und Gestaltung Wahlseminar Kunst­ und Kulturtheorie.

20­Page Paper, 5000 Words

Summer Semester 2016

​Table of Contents

1.

Introduction 2.

Existing Problems ➢ Health Education and Aid ➢ Delivering Aid ➢ Promoting Knowledge

3.

4.

5.

Introduction Idea ➢ Technology ➢ P2P communication and SPAN ➢ GSM Network Main Idea ➢ Health and Hygiene ➢ Contraception and Childbirth ➢ Nutrition and Agriculture ➢ Surroundings

The platform ➢ Critical Mass of Users = Network = Community ➢ Potential short term Change ➢ Potential long term Change

6.

Conclusion

Abstract On a global level, the number of people the World Bank defines as under the poverty line is declining. However, this is neither a uniform nor a certain development. It is therefore important to think about new ways to accelerate this process and make sure it is sustainable.

The question this paper seeks to answer is: How can communication and connecting mechanisms contribute to this process, and improve the inclusion and empowerment of the world’s most marginalized people?

It argues that the biggest problem with current ways of delivering aid and promoting basic knowledge is the manner in which this it being done. It suggests an alternative way, using existing wireless networks, infrastructure and community projects. This paper especially focuses on how we can efficiently promote innovation and provide information to those who need it most. The goal is to reduce poverty in rural and urban regions, both by short term changes and long term, structural development.

Ultimately, impoverished countries should reach a point where they no longer require aid and become nations who themselves turn into drivers of innovation.

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1.

Introduction

Many different approaches exist on how to assist the world's most marginalized people. It seems that a combination of such different approaches works best to truly have an effect on the world's poorest countries.

According to a 2014 World Bank study, two thirds of the world's poorest people live in just five different countries. They live on less than $1,25 a day. These five countries are India (33% of these persons), China (13%), Nigeria (7%), Bangladesh (6%), and the DRC (5%). The other 38% live in smaller countries located mainly in Africa and Asia, like Liberia, Burundi and Madagascar.1

According to this same study, poverty is on the decline globally. From 1990 to 2010, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty went down from 36 percent to 18 percent. The World Bank’s goal is to reduce poverty to 9 percent until 2020. The study revealed, however, that economic growth is not enough to reach this goal. In addition, the international community will also have to develop new ways to allocate more resources to the world’s poorest people.2

As World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim puts it, “Economic growth has been vital for reducing extreme poverty and improving the lives of many poor people”.

“Yet”, he continues, “even if all countries grow at the same rates as over the past 20 years, and if the income distribution remains unchanged, world poverty will only fall by 10 percent by 2030, from 17.7 percent in 2010. This is simply not enough, and we need a laser like focus on making growth more inclusive and targeting more programs to assist the poor directly if we’re going to end extreme poverty.”3

Bill Gates, too, is a strong advocate of aid. Together with his wife, Melinda Gates, he runs the world's largest charitable foundation, the ​Gates Foundation. He agrees with the World Bank that investing in different programs is key to improve the life quality of the poor and to end poverty.4

​World Bank Group, ‘Prosperity for All, Ending Extreme Poverty’, 2014, http://go.worldbank.org/345EKB2ZJ0​ (22 August 2016).

2 ​World Bank Group, fn1.

3 Jim Yong Kim, Press release ‘Ending poverty requires more than growth, says WBG‘, 10 April 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press­release/2014/04/10/ending­poverty­requires­more­than­grow th­says­wbg​ (22 August 2016).

4 ​Bill Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2014 Gates Annual Letter ‘3 Myths that block progress for the poor‘, (2014).

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“Health aid is a phenomenal investment. When I look at how many fewer children are dying than 30 years ago, and how many people are living longer and healthier lives, I get quite optimistic about the future.”, said Bill Gates in his 2014 Annual Letter.

“Above all, I hope we can stop discussing whether aid works, and spend more time talking about how it can work better. This is especially important as you move from upstream research on global public goods into the downstream effort of delivering these innovations.”5

Given these statements, it appears that investing in the right programs, efficiently delivering innovation to the poor and inclusion of the local population, is the way to go in order to tackle existing problems of resource allocation.

But there are also different voices. One of them is Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University, who believes that in many situations, we face more significant problems. In his book, ​The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, he argues that many poor countries, despite receiving significant amounts of international aid, fail to develop. He writes that some countries, mostly located in Africa and Central Asia, remain in different kind of traps, caused by civil wars, natural resource conflicts, a landlocked situation surrounded by bad neighbors, or bad governance. Although he agrees that aid agencies play a vital role in helping these countries to avoid these traps, he argues that appropriate military interventions and changes in global trade policies are also necessary.6

Although a combination of many different measurements is necessary to ensure that poverty keeps declining, this paper focuses on one specific aspect of this general policy: how to efficiently promote innovation and provide information to those who need it most.

​Bill Gates, fn4, 16­17.

Paul Collier, ​‘The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About‘, (2007).

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2.

Existing Problems

Health, Education and Aid Health is the most pressing issue, and should therefore be tackled first. Healthy and nurtured people are the cornerstone of thriving communities. Every year six million children are dying from malnutrition before their fifth birthday – a situation that does not need to be like this.7 If newborn children are dying and the surviving ones are malnourished and cannot fully develop, there is little education­centers can do.

As Bill Gates puts it “I have believed for a long time that disparities in health are some of the worst inequities in the world—that it is unjust and unacceptable that millions of children die every year from causes that we can prevent or treat. I don’t think a child’s fate should be left to what Warren Buffett calls the “ovarian lottery.” If we hit this goal of convergence, the ovarian lottery for health outcomes will be closed for good.”8

Despite good intentions to close this “ovarian lottery”, two problems emerge. First, the distribution of aid is often inefficiently organized. And second, aid organizations struggle to find ways to efficiently promote basic knowledge in rural areas – with little success so far.

Delivering Aid

Using aid resources as efficiently as possible is important to allow them to reach as many people as possible. Therefore, it is important to track aid and to make sure it gets where it is most needed. The further it travels and splits up, the harder it is to track.

Currently, some aid, for example vaccines or knowledge about basic hygiene or contraception, is distributed through people driving around in rural regions. They are using satellite images to find remote villages.9 In most cases, this is inefficient and time­consuming. It would be much more efficient to bring people themselves to ​World Health Organization, Fact Sheet ‘Children, reducing mortality, 2016, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs178/en/​ (24 August 2016).

8 ​Bill Gates, fn4, 17.

9 ​Bill Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2013 Gates Annual Letter ‘Measuring Progress‘, (2013), 13­14.

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community centers, where they would receive treatment or education. But how can you inform secluded villages in rural regions of nearby community centers, without visiting every single one of them? Communication plays a key role.

Promoting Knowledge

Aid comes in various forms. One important form is knowledge. This knowledge ranges from how to take basic hygiene measures to prevent the spreading of diseases, how to properly cut umbilical cords, how to use contraceptives, or how to cultivate land in a sustainable way.10

But not everyone has access to this information. In impoverished regions there is often no, or very poor internet coverage. In the rare cases in which there are established networks, they are very expensive, compared to the western world. Even if there are computers available, poor regions have no access to the information the internet provides. The population of these countries is excluded from a pool of information and the possibility to connect with others. According to the following three maps, there is a clear correlation between internet access, internet affordability and poverty rate.

Percentage of the population, living under the poverty line.

Source: UN Human development indices 2008

​Bill Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2015 Gates Annual Letter ‘Our Big Bet for the Future‘, (2015).

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Percentage of the population, with internet access.

Source: International Telecommunications Union 2012

Cost of broadband subscription as a percentage of average yearly income.

Source: University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute 2014, by Mark Graham and Stefano De Sabbata

Of course, at the moment there is less demand for high speed Internet connections in impoverished countries, than in rich ones. This contributes to coverage being poor and expensive. But for simple text­based data transfer, there is no need for high speed 4g coverage. The efficient use of already established slow networks can have huge positive impacts on poor countries. Text­based data could make valuable information available to people in those regions.

In the next chapter, as an introduction to my main idea, I talk about how technology in general changes society and which kind of digital communication network could spread knowledge in regions without high speed internet coverage.

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3.

Introduction Idea

Technology

History teaches us that the development and distribution of new technologies deeply influences our society and way of living. It facilitates technological, scientific, cultural progress, which enhances quality of life more generally. On the contrary, technological progress has negative sides too, especially in the past, for example negative effects on our environment or the development of weapons.

Economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow´s model predicts that long­term growth rates were dependent on technological change rather than investment. This model backs the importance of innovation. The general public usually imagines technology as smartphones or new high tech equipment. But it also includes new processes, like the idea of the assembly line or specific ways of cultivating land.

These processes are often crucial know­how, gathered by decades of trial and error.11

Of course, technological advances and access to information are only two contributing factors among many others, such as investments for infrastructure and the reform of a region's political system. But the efficient spreading of know­how is the factor I want to focus on in this paper. The question then becomes: how can we spread this knowledge on a larger scale, considering the restrictions of highly limited resources and lack of internet coverage?

P2P communication and SPAN

One idea is to establish a peer to peer internet distribution network. Here, one user is connected to an internet access point. This user shares this connection over the internal short distance communication technology, built into the phone, with other users, who are beyond the internet access point’s reach. Using this method, no cellular carrier network is needed.

​Charles Kenney, ‘Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding‘ (2012), Chapter three: The worse News ­ The History of Growth Theory.

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Communication between smartphones, without a cellular carrier network (SPAN).

Source: Youtube video by MITRE corporation explaining there SPAN prototype solution.

Internet distribution over SPAN using only one internet access point.

Source: Youtube video by MITRE corporation explaining there SPAN prototype solution.

The idea of SPAN, Smart Phone Ad hoc Networks, is a kind of peer to peer communication system. It uses the smartphone’s internal wireless lan or bluetooth transmitters to connect with other users.12 13 However, there are many factors which 12

MITRE Corporation, ‘​ You're the Network: Keeping Smartphones Connected When Systems Go Down‘, https://www.mitre.org/publications/project­stories/youre­the­network­keeping­smartphones­connected­ when­systems­go­down​, (23 August 2016).

13 New York Times, ​‘Hong Kong Protests Propel FireChat Phone­to­Phone App‘, (5 October 2014), http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/technology/hong­kong­protests­propel­a­phone­to­phone­app­.ht ml​, (23 August 2016).

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make this kind of communication impossible to use in very poor rural regions.

Although modern technology is spreading rapidly in many countries, smartphones are still rare in rural areas. In addition, the connection is usually very unstable when there are not many participants. This form of technology works best in dense, urban areas, where there are internet access points already available.

Fortunately, there is another option, which is often overlooked. An already established wireless network, called GSM, which could be put to additional use.

GSM Network

GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communication. It is the first digital cellular network used by mobile phones and is available in almost every country on the world.

Worldwide GSM Network coverage.

Source: WorldTimeZone.com

GSM is compatible with very cheap phones, the use of which is currently skyrocketing in developing countries. From 2005 to 2008 GSM customers went from 1.5 billion to 3 billion.14 This rise in customers could help to reach people, who currently live in exclusion, to get easier access to basic knowledge and aid.

In the next chapter I talk about the main idea of the paper and go into detail, which kind of knowledge could be spread over the GSM network.

GSMA, ‘​ ​History: Brief history of GSM and GSMA‘​ , (2008), ​http://www.webcitation.org/5yRQRGPgH​, (23 August 2016).

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4.

Main Idea

This paper’s main idea is to promote the establishment of a communication, exchange and information platform using only the GSM network. In contrast to other, modern network techniques, GSM is capable of transferring data only on a slow rate.

However, simple text or sound based messages do not require great amounts of data volume.

In Bangladesh, the fastest growing financial service is a mobile banking platform, called bKash. The cost of processing digital transaction is close to zero. Therefore, the bKash operators make a profit by making small commission on millions and millions of transaction, serving mainly poor customers.

Source: bKash

Digital transactions have most practical value in countries where traditional bank services are not available to poor people. First, there are often simply not enough banks or places where people can manage their money and assets effectively. Second, people often do not have enough liquid assets to put into a bank account. Their savings are often in the form of jewelry or livestock, which is not possible to use on daily expenses. Therefore, they often sell property at a relatively high price and hide that money around their homes. This is very unsafe.15

15

​Bill Gates, fn10, 17­19.

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Mobile banking services make it possible to store savings safe, to use smaller amounts on daily expenses, or to send money to other family members without traveling.

Customers can use their phones like debit cards. These services are accessible even by very cheap phones, using GSM or newer cellular networks. Because of the need for an alternate cheap form of financial management, relatively poor countries are leading the way in some areas of digital financial innovation.16

But exactly what kind of information could be spread over a platform? The next four sections aim at giving an overview of some fields of information that could dramatically improve the quality of life in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Health and Hygiene

Goal: Raise awareness of diseases and the importance of basic hygiene.

Better sanitation, as simple as hand washing before and after certain tasks or using soap, can help to cut down the spreading of diseases. Although the general child death rate is declining globally, newborns in their first months are still at high risk in many countries. Proper breastfeeding practices and being more careful when it comes to skin to skin contact with a newborn, can reduce the spreading of infections dramatically.17 Another important step is to raise awareness of dangerous diseases and how to prevent them. In many cases, being careful with water, contraception or better sanitation is enough. In addition, learning about different treatments or vaccines and where to get them is important.

For example, a combination of salt and sugar, dissolved in water is an effective and very easy to produce treatment for cholera. As a result, cholera related deaths are increasingly rare worldwide.18 Simple information like this could be passed along effectively over an information platform.

​Bill Gates, fn10, 17­19. ​Bill Gates, fn10, 5­6.

18 ​Charles Kenney, fn11, Chapter Seven: Drivers of the better life ­ Sewage, Cities and Disease.

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Contraception and Childbirth

Goal: Help empower women, by giving them control over their pregnancies.

In Sub­Saharan Africa and South Asia, there are still hundreds of millions of women who either don't have access to contraception or haven't even learned about it. The possibility to control pregnancies is crucial to plan the future of a family.19 In addition, some forms of contraception are reducing the risk of spreading sexually transmitted diseases.

Besides learning about contraception and where to get it, it is also important to know where the nearest healthcare facility is, as well as where health workers can help deliver babies and treat them and the mother after birth. In 1990, one in 10 children worldwide died before the age of 5. Since then, the child death rate has gone down to one in 20. A contributing factor is that more and more women are delivering their children in healthcare facilities instead of at home. In Rwanda, for example, mothers delivering at facilities has gone up from 31 percent to 72 percent since 2005. In Cambodia, the figure went up from 20 to 57 percent.20 This is much safer for the child and the mother. In addition, the newborn gets immediately vaccinated for common diseases and illnesses. An information platform could raise awareness about the importance of contraception and healthcare facilities.

Nutrition and Agriculture

Goal: Teach people about nutrition and help farmers to effectively cultivate their land.

Proper nutrition is especially important for young children. Malnutrition is a vicious circle. The problem is not only that there is often not enough food available, but also that the food that most people in sub­Saharan Africa are consuming isn't nutritious or varied enough to make up for a healthy diet. Many Africans almost exclusively consume starchy staples, like rice or maize. As a result, nutritional deficiencies are leading to immune degradation and impaired cognitive and physical development.

These factors are affecting the productivity of laborers in the cities, the spreading of diseases, the general health, and are ultimately leading to a higher child mortality.21

​Melinda Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2013 Gates Annual Letter ‘Measuring Progress‘, (2013), 8.

20 ​Bill Gates, fn10, 5­6.

21 ​Bill Gates, fn10, 11.

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This is happening, despite the fact that, as stated in the 2015 Gates Annual Letter, “seven out of ten people living in sub­Saharan Africa are farmers. (Compare that to the United States, where the ratio is two out of a hundred.) And yet Africa has to rely on imports and food aid to feed itself. Though it’s the poorest continent in the world, it spends about $50 billion a year buying food from rich countries.”22

There are many structural reasons for this development, including legacies of colonialism, a world trade regime unfavorable to the world’s poorest countries, and ongoing political conflicts in many of these countries. One of the most practical reasons, however, is simply that many African farmers are cultivating their land very inefficiently, compared to farmers in richer countries. This is often the case because of a lack of available information, not due to a lack of money. For example, information on planting techniques, crop rotation, the right timing, or weather forecasts could have a tremendous impact on the productivity of African farmers.

Text based data is enough to transmit those information.

Source: Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

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​Bill Gates, fn10, 11.

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Surroundings

Goal: Raise awareness of existing healthcare centers, schools or community projects.

It is almost impossible to reach and find everyone who needs medical assistance by driving around villages in jeeps. Through a communication platform, strong awareness campaigns and word of mouth, it's far more likely to reach those who live in total exclusion and need assistance. In addition, it is crucial to educate the population on how important medical facilities are.

In the 1980s, there was a massive famine around the horn of Africa, which left more than one million people dead. Ethiopia's health indicators, including child mortality were at an all time low. In the 2000s, the Ethiopian government finally set the goal to bring primary health to every citizen and signed on to the MDGs. Their commitment to reach the goal to reduce child mortality by two thirds raised significant donor funds to improve their health care services. Today, Ethiopia has a vast network of more than 15,000 healthcare posts, delivering primary health care. A total of 34,000 health workers are staffed there, most of them young women from the local communities. In Ethiopia, these interventions had a dramatic impact on the people living there. Child mortality and the number of women dying in childbirth have decreased, and more women have access to contraceptives which allows effective family planning.23

Although there is a lot of aid money involved, this example, in particular, shows how much can be achieved by including the population of a country in community projects. Better communication and more awareness could contribute to such developments.

In the next chapter I explain how such a digital platform could create a network of knowledge and how it could include large parts of a population, who were excluded before.

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​Bill Gates, fn9, 6­8.

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5.

The Platform

Critical Mass of User = Network = Community

Every kind of communication platform needs a certain amount of users to function properly. In this case, on the one side, the user mass consists of people receiving information and on the other side of people providing information. To make this kind of platform work, there have to be people providing information first. In the long run it evolves into a network of knowledge, which is accessible by large portions of the population in a troubled country.

Receivers (people, who receive helpful information)

Receivers could range from young mothers, children, farmers, teachers to anyone who needs specific information. They are able to communicate with one another, to share information, and come to each other’s assistance. As a result, they can provide information too, but on a much smaller and more personal level.

Providers (people, who provide helpful information)

Providers are people with a specific expertise in a specific field. The information provided by them is constantly changing, depending on the demand of the region or country. It could range form general health education all the way up to organisation schemes for different tasks. The people providing this information could range from health workers and doctors to engineers and agriculture experts.

For example, if a region has high child mortality, there should be a lot of information available, which could potentially lower this rate. If a region has problems with certain diseases, there should be a lot of information available on these diseases.

Often, a region faces several important challenges at the same time, which cannot be solved simultaneously. It is therefore key to identify the most pressing issue and prioritize information accordingly. Although the receiver has access to every information he or she is specifically looking for, there is always the prioritized information of the region in the foreground. As a result, the platform can make sure that everyone is educated on certain topics. If in the long run a problem is losing significance, the topics in the foreground are changing to currently more important ones.

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Let me explain by using a fictive example.

There is a young mother, who recently had her first child. Her name is Dalila and she lives in a poor rural area around a small town, called Bummara in Somalia. Dalila is worried about her child, because she knows that a lot of newborns die within their first couple of weeks in her community. Local aid organisations, government officials and NGOs are aware that child mortality is statistically the worst problem in the area Dalila is living in. Specifically, they realize that the leading causes of child deaths are pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria. They prioritize these problems and update the new information platform that they are using to inform people in the area about specific problems and where the next health post is, in case they need any help.

Dalila’s husband recently got a very cheap mobile phone. For two days, he has been receiving text­based information on how to take care of newborns and young children, in order to stop the spreading of infections and diseases. The couple utilizes these tips and also passes the information on to their close community, but after 3 weeks their child starts coughing. Dalila’s husband remembered that one message informed him, that if he needs information on other topics or wants to know where to get help, he should visit the information platform, using his phone. Doing so, he finds out where the next health center is located. It is 15 km away. Dalila heads out, to take her newborn there for proper treatment.

This fictive short story points out how the platform proposed in this paper functions and how it reaches people: not just through phones, but also through word of mouth.

Like bKash, the banking platform mentioned earlier, a mobile digital information and exchange platform could potentially trigger tremendous change in poor countries by helping to access local knowledge, identify the key issues, and prioritize relevant information. In the next two sections I will talk about potential short term and long term effects it could have.

Potential short term change

Almost every improvement of existing problems has an immediate positive effect on other existing problems. This is very good news. When a region significantly improves one problematic issue, often many other challenges become easier to manage.

For example, improved agricultural productivity has played a dramatic role in reducing costs of living and decreasing the threat of famine in many countries. This automatically improves nutrition, strengthens immune systems, reduces the spreading of infections and ultimately leads to lower child mortality 17

Factors such as productivity, food quality, and mortality rates are therefore intrinsically linked. On the flipside, this explains why there are so many vicious circles. But through technology, innovation and aid, it is possible for countries to break out of these vicious circles and become healthy and thriving communities – until they reach a point where they no longer require aid and become nations who themselves turn into drivers of innovation.

Ethiopia, a country which currently is undergoing many political problems, is nevertheless a nation developing in that direction. I previously mentioned the low­point Ethiopia was at, in the 1980s. After a terrible famine, the country established a vast health post network, consisting of 15,000 posts and over 34,000 health workers.24 This led the country in the right direction in terms of improving its health system. Today, Ethiopia is heavily focusing on improving their infrastructure and their telecommunication network. A quarter of each year’s infrastructure budget, $4 billion, is spent on building, upgrading and repairing roads. This shows that the government recognizes the importance of a proper road network, that can help fostering economic growth and profiting from the country’s many resources.

Regarding their telecommunication development, the Ethiopian government states that, “the number of lines available to internet users recently doubled and a more efficient service will in future be provided to the business community, educational, health and agricultural sectors.”25

This example shows the progress a country can go through in the area of health, infrastructure and communication, by ways of using the right techniques. These techniques helped to transform relatively short term interventions into long term change. An open Information platform could help trigger similar change in other countries as well.

Potential long term change

In the long term, the enhanced quality of life and economic situation of the population should attract investment and lead to better urban and rural infrastructure, like roads, sewer systems or housing. Sewer systems and housing are particular challenges in urban areas.

​Bill Gates, fn9, 6­8.

Ethiopian Government, Statement on Infrastructure, (2015), http://www.ethiopia.gov.et/web/Pages/Infrastructure​, ​(23 August 2016).

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“When people move to cities they are looking for better jobs and more opportunity, but too often end up trapped in a stigmatized space of poverty and marginalization,” and “this is particularly true for the nearly 1 billion urban poor who live in informal settlements around the world. The current levels of urban poverty and inequality, coupled with the projected rates of urbanization, send a clear and unequivocal signal: we need to do more to foster inclusion and we need to do it differently,”26 says Ede Ijjasz­Vasquez, Senior Director for the Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice at the World Bank Group.

An example for such urban challenges is Vietnam, where many poor urban areas frequently faced flooding and had poor sanitation, which caused health and environmental risks. In the cities of Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho, the ​Vietnam Urban Upgrading Project tackled those challenges. From 2004 to 2014, and with 382 million dollar financing from the World Bank and 140 million dollar funding from the government of Vietnam, they heavily engaged local communities to participate in project design and implementation. The people of these communities contributed not only their time and effort, but, in some cases, also donated land to make certain designs possible.

“Together with other members of our community, I frequently checked the project’s progress in our neighborhood to make sure everything was done in a timely manner with high quality,” says Nguyen Thanh Tu, Member of the community supervision board, Ho Chi Minh City.

The project has finally turned 200 poor areas into attractive communities, and transformed the lives of millions of urban poor. This benefited around 7.5 million people. In a project like this, an open information and communication platform, which is accessible by everyone, could help with engineering and architectural questions, as well as to help engage communities to become part of the work process.27

Projects like this are new fields of investment that could trigger a wave of foreign investors and corporations, which may not always be favorable to the host country.

Therefore, these new markets have to be regulated, in order to ensure that they work in the interest of the general population. But this is the topic of another paper. ​Ede Ijjasz­Vasquez, World Bank Group, ‘A New Approach to Cities: Everyone Counts‘, (2015), http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/10/29/a­new­approach­to­cities­including­inclusion​, (24 August 2016).

27 World Bank Group, ​‘Better Infrastructure for 7.5 Million Urban Residents in Vietnam‘, (2014) ,​http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/12/19/better­infrastructure­for­75­million­urban­resi dents­in­vietnam​, (24 August 2016).

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6.

Conclusion

Many factors explain why countries remain poor. To help these countries international policy makers need to implement different measures. Every country has its own specific history, geographical position, government, policies, population, and problems. As a result, there is no one size­fits­all­approach that is suitable for every country. Of course policy makers can learn from other successful development methods. However, for a method to work for a specific country, it has to be individualized and fit this country's specific needs. This is a time consuming and difficult process.

This paper has proposed ways to facilitate and accelerate such a process. Despite the need for tailored solutions, this paper highlights the one approach that always has a positive effect: communication of information. As this paper stressed, communication plays a key role in any developmental process. Digital wireless networks, by efficiently spreading information, make it possible to help large portions of a population. They help to improve their quality of life, to include them in the development process, and to enable them to become active and participating members of their society.

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Bibliography

Collier Paul​, ‘The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About‘, (2007).

Ethiopian Government​, Statement on Infrastructure, (2015), http://www.ethiopia.gov.et/web/Pages/Infrastructure​, (23 August 2016).

Gates Bill​, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2013 Gates Annual Letter ‘Measuring Progress‘, (2013).

Gates Bill​, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2015 Gates Annual Letter ‘Our Big Bet for the Future‘, (2015).

Gates Bill​, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2014 Gates Annual Letter ‘3 Myths that block progress for the poor‘, (2014).

Gates Melinda​, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2013 Gates Annual Letter ‘Measuring Progress‘, (2013), 8.

GSMA​, ‘​ ​History: Brief history of GSM and GSMA‘​ , (2008), ​http://www.webcitation.org/5yRQRGPgH​, (23 August 2016).

Ijjasz­Vasquez Ede​, World Bank Group, ‘A New Approach to Cities: Everyone Counts‘, (2015), http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/10/29/a­new­approach­to­cities­including­inclusion​, (24 August 2016).

Kenney Charles​, ‘Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding‘ (2012).

Kim Jim Yong, Press release ‘Ending poverty requires more than growth, says WBG‘, 10 April 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press­release/2014/04/10/ending­poverty­requires­more­than­grow th­says­wbg​ (22 August 2016).

MITRE Corporation​, ​‘You're the Network: Keeping Smartphones Connected When Systems Go Down‘, https://www.mitre.org/publications/project­stories/youre­the­network­keeping­smartphones­connected­ when­systems­go­down​, (23 August 2016).

New York Times​, ​‘Hong Kong Protests Propel FireChat Phone­to­Phone App‘, (5 October 2014), http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/technology/hong­kong­protests­propel­a­phone­to­phone­app­.ht ml​, (23 August 2016).

World Bank Group​, ​‘Better Infrastructure for 7.5 Million Urban Residents in Vietnam‘, (2014), http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/12/19/better­infrastructure­for­75­million­urban­resid ents­in­vietnam​, (24 August 2016).

World Bank Group​, ‘Prosperity for All, Ending Extreme Poverty’, 2014, http://go.worldbank.org/345EKB2ZJ0​ (22 August 2016).

World Health Organization​, Fact Sheet ‘Children, reducing mortality, 2016, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs178/en/​ (24 August 2016).

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