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Can the rural poor in Bangladesh utilize
the latest information and communication
technologies to overcome their
poverty? There will be quite a few who
will disagree. But a number of Grameen
enterprises have attempted to develop
new business models to test the hypothesis
that has been vigorously advocated
by Professor Yunus since the early 90s.
The 41st issue of Grameen Dialogue featured
the new technology based enterprises
which have been set up in the 90s.
Grameen Communications have already
successfully experimented with rural
internet service, IT training and village
kiosks. Grameen Bank and Grameen
Telecom have pioneered the highly innovative
village phone programme, that has
been so successful that it has already
drawn world wide attention. The VP programme
with more than 150,000 subscribers
at the end of July this year, has
provided the Grameen Bank borrowers
with access to GSM mobile phones, connecting
even the remotest Bangladesh villages
in the coastal belt with rest of the
world. According to numerous studies, the
programme had a spectacular success in
raising the income of village women and
their families. Selected members of
Grameen Bank receive regular loans
from the bank, to buy a mobile handset
and the cell phone service through
Grameenphone network. The VP programme
clearly demonstrated the
power and cost effectiveness of ICT
when a number of factors work together:
Firstly, there is the need for an institution
that is designed and dedicated to
promote the technology ( i.e. mobile
telephony ) and provide the poor with
direct access to it. In Bangladesh
Grameen Telecom was developed specifically
for this purpose. The primary precondition
was that investments in such a
technology must be profitable for the poor,
who should be able to own and manage the
technology. Secondly, the ICT application
has to be worthwhile as a business
enterprise. It has to be financially and
technically feasible, capable of attracting
large commercial investments. This
became a reality in Bangladesh context
when Telenor of Norway, one of the
largest telecom operators in Europe, found
it worthwhile to invest in cell phone business
in Bangladesh, assured no doubt by a
reliable partner like Grameen Telecom.
Thirdly, you need a microfinance institution
that is willing and able to take the
risk involved in providing the financing
needed by hundreds of thousands of
micro-entrepreneurs, mostly the women
from the poorest households, dispersed
over thousands of remote villages
throughou t the country.
Microfinance, therefore, enables the
poor to gain a strong leverage with the
new technology to raise their income and
social status.
The impact of mobile telephones, for the
first time in the hands of the poor in rural
Bangladesh, has been almost instantaneous.
While the government owned
BTTB, the sole fixed line telephone system
in the country and other mobile operators
looked on incredulously, the VP programme
spread rapidly. GrameenPhone was also encouraged to roll out very fast its
transmission network, with hundreds of
new base stations coming on air every year.
Grameen Telecom has kept pace with
expansion of its technical support services
to the VP customers. Simultaneously,
Grameen Bank expanded and diversified
its lending programme to provide the much
needed finances to its borrowers.
Thousands of new micro-entrepreneurs
have entered the cell phone business, setting
up telephone kiosks in villages, market
places and small towns along the rural
roads and highways. Many have already
diversified their business providing, telephony,
telefax, computers and emerging IT
related business.
- by Khalid Shams |
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