Mobile Cell Phones and Poverty Reduction: Technology Spending Patterns and Poverty Level Change among Households in Uganda

This case study, by Ms Kathleen Diga from IDRC, examines the spending behaviour of households with mobile phones in rural Uganda and whether such strategies such as substitutions have affected the well-being of these community members.

According to the findings, the challenges which rural households face include making sacrifices such as travel expenses and store-bought food budgets in order to pay the costs of mobile phone services. Findings also show that gender inequality through exacerbated asset control and mobile phone inexperience drive further digital divide in Katote, Uganda. However, in other cases, proliferation of small businesses development encourages phone ownership for women.
Such strategies to afford a mobile phone or mobile phone services are undertaken to help facilitate long-term asset accumulation. For development studies, the analysis recommends a revised form of development thinking in a growing knowledge economy.

The case study can be downloaded as a PDF