Digital Reach

[

] 112

HE FIRST DAY

I walked into a classroom and announced to

my postgraduate communication students that I will be

lecturing about the Internet and its reengineering of the

communication field, one of my students cut me short, by saying:

“You North Americans, please, just let us alone with your Internet!

Here in Africa, we have our talking drum. And we are more than

happy with it.”

This was in October 1997, in one of the best African commu-

nication schools, the Advanced School of Science and

Communication Techniques of Yaoundé, Cameroon. I was

stunned by the charge. If professional journalists, in a post grad-

uate specialization programme, could react so vehemently about

a technology which is transforming completely not only the news-

rooms, but practically every aspect of life, what about the rest of

society? I decided to find out by carrying out research every year

on e-access and usage in Africa. The first one was carried out in

the Yaoundé region, by the very same student, after four months

of lecturing, and concluded that the Internet was a far cry from

the talking drum.

The first evidence discovered by the study was that cyber cafés,

the main community access points, were growing in the capital

city, Yaoundé, like mushrooms. The second stunning evidence

was that up to 70 per cent of Internet users were made of women.

One of the consequences of the deep and lingering economic

crisis the country had faced for more than ten years was, and still

is, that young men are more and more reluctant to tie the knot.

For girls grown up in a culture which makes marriage the para-

mount objective in life, getting a husband has become

problematic. In order to solve this, they take recourse in the

Internet to look for available parties elsewhere, mostly in Europe.

The journey towards Internet access and usage in Africa

brought another revealing practice. In Dakar, to avoid unneces-

sary journeys to hospital by new mothers, some doctors have set

up a network of weight watchers in the most populated and poor

neighbourhoods. Their task consists of weighing the newborn

babies, from a few weeks to six months, on a periodic basis. The

report is sent by SMS to the hospital. The doctor only calls to the

hospital if the mother of a baby has an abnormal development

path. This has helped in great deal to slim the line of patients in

medical premises.

Fishermen’s catches have increased by more than 90 per cent.

While at sea, they stay in touch with land and can therefore

inform in real time about the kind of fish and the quantity, and

be informed about where the market is so that, before getting

back to shore, suitable trucks are waiting to carry their catch to

the market.

The Manobi project has enabled 150 farmers to raise their

revenues on average by USD 200 per month. A few farmers were

able to raise their revenues by USD 1 000 per month. In Kenya,

the Drumnet project empowered farmers to improve their

For whom does the Internet click in Africa?

Olivier Nana Nzepa

Photo: Sanjay Acharya/MAP