Pro Poor mobile capabilities: service offering in Latin America and the Caribbean
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Abstract
This paper establishes the background for analytical and empirical examinations of mobile opportunities and service capabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The analytical and empirical studies will form the basis of a regional assessment and, ultimately, to recommendations for meaningful pro-poor policy, regulatory and project interventions in the region. The paper recognizes that mobile services ultimately enable end-user applications and that insight into these applications is critical to understanding their existing and potential importance in traditionally marginalized communities. It recognizes that these uses are in turn key to assessing developmental impact and to making meaningful pro-poor recommendations.
The background paper provides a taxonomic review of terms such as the more general “applications” and the more specific “ICT applications”. It also provides a taxonomy on services. The relationship between applications and services is made in general though emphasis is placed on the link between ICT applications and their enabling mobile services. The categorization of services and applications will be used to guide the development of a questionnaire to be applied to Mobile Usage field studies in eight Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2007.
The paper recommends a handful of specific questions to be included in the field instrument. As a backdrop for analytical work which will follow the proposed mobile field studies, the background paper includes a discussion of the potential of mobile services to impact poverty as well as some familiar case studies which illustrate different contextual examples. As a backdrop to recommendations for interventions, a brief overview of LAC mobile service offerings and service providers is provided and relevant knowledge gaps in the region are identified. A research strategy to fill these gaps is proposed.
TELEPHONY; TELECOMMUNICATIONS; LATIN AMERICA; CARIBBEAN
