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Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Business Flash from Bloomberg World Handquarters.
Speaker 1: I'm Charlie pellop to dial the SMP nez stack all
Speaker 1: hire today. SMP five hundred index advancing ten points to
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Speaker 1: Janet Yellen signals the economy is still strengthening enough to
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Speaker 1: per barrel of West Texas Intermediate again there of two
Speaker 1: point four percent. I'm Charlie Pellett and that's a bloom
Speaker 1: Bird business flash. Is taking stock with Kathleen Hayes and
Speaker 1: grim Box on Bloomberg Radio Africa. Africa Man he say,
Speaker 1: is definitely turned the corner, and one big piece of
Speaker 1: that puzzle is technology from tiny startups to major corporations
Speaker 1: like General Electric investing in that continent helping it to
Speaker 1: move ahead. Someone else who's helping it to move ahead
Speaker 1: is joining us now. A regular on the show. Dick Garity,
Speaker 1: principle at g v A, research columnists at Investopedia and
Speaker 1: also advising the World Bank Group on integrating information and
Speaker 1: communication technologies in development projects in Africa. Dave, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Kathleen, thank you very much. Well, it's really
Speaker 1: terrific for our listeners to hear this part of your
Speaker 1: story and your work because this is so important, so powerful.
Speaker 1: Tell us what you're doing with the World Bank, uh
Speaker 1: in terms of I've been consulting with the World Banks
Speaker 1: and spent two thousand and ten looking mostly around how
Speaker 1: do we use technology to get financial inclusion for people
Speaker 1: in Africa? And financial inclusion basically means how do we
Speaker 1: give people access to the use of either bank accounts
Speaker 1: or access to other formal financial services. This could be microinsurance,
Speaker 1: this could be micro loans, but primarily being able to
Speaker 1: leverage the technology platform that cell phones represent to be
Speaker 1: able to get access to those services. And this has
Speaker 1: been instrumental in a number of areas, whether it's doing
Speaker 1: you know, utility bill presentation, settlement, paying school fees, wide
Speaker 1: range of applications. Could you give us one specific example
Speaker 1: that you've worked on, you've been part of, to give
Speaker 1: us a sense of how it got you know, what
Speaker 1: it is and then the impact it is having. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In case in point um just it was less than
Speaker 1: months ago, I was in northern Nigeria work in a
Speaker 1: project to modernize irrigation districts UM. This is a five
Speaker 1: million dollar project that the World Bank is doing with
Speaker 1: the Nigerian government. Obviously, the first thing that has to
Speaker 1: happen there is that the farmers have to be pay
Speaker 1: their irrigation fees. If they don't pay for the water fees,
Speaker 1: the irrigation project will fail. UM. Typically, though, you're finding
Speaker 1: that these farmers, you know, they're operating in rural locations.
Speaker 1: UH they're about a hundred and fifty thousand farmers across
Speaker 1: five irrigation districts. And we're going to be implementing UH
Speaker 1: mobile money payment programs starting in the second half of
Speaker 1: to help assist all this now to the extent that
Speaker 1: we can help farmers pay their water fees. Obviously the
Speaker 1: protect productivity can improve. They spend less time basically trying
Speaker 1: to travel their costs. We're also at the same time
Speaker 1: trying to leverage their cell phones to provide other information
Speaker 1: to improve their productivity, whether it's crop prices, whether it's
Speaker 1: further information in terms of what techniques might be used
Speaker 1: to improve their own productivity. But this is a five
Speaker 1: million dollar project, it's in it's that's in its third
Speaker 1: year right now, but it's really going to start to
Speaker 1: take its benefit over the balance of sixteen going tea
Speaker 1: into seventeen and eighteen, and just another way to show
Speaker 1: how profound the impact can be of information and communication
Speaker 1: technolog and she's particularly in poor areas like Africa that
Speaker 1: are are really trying to take off in many ways
Speaker 1: exceeding a paper you co authored with Paula f Lightel,
Speaker 1: a senior social development specialists at the World Bank. It's
Speaker 1: about using I c T information communication technologies to support
Speaker 1: ending the tuberculosis epidemic in Southern Africa. Tell Us, I
Speaker 1: don't think most people realize that the tuberculosis right now
Speaker 1: is killing almost as many people as HIV AIDS around
Speaker 1: the world. It's actually, according to the World Health Organization,
Speaker 1: is killing more people than HIV eight And in the
Speaker 1: case of looking at Southern Africa, you've got infection rates
Speaker 1: for tuberculosis that are about three times the global average.
Speaker 1: And from that standpoint, we're in a situation where, um,
Speaker 1: you know, being able to control tuberculosis is going to
Speaker 1: be very important in terms of addressing a major public
Speaker 1: health issue. And this is a project that the Bank's
Speaker 1: working on and it's going to be going forward over
Speaker 1: the next five years. It just recently got approval and
Speaker 1: we're going focusing on countries such as Zambia Mozambique, allowing
Speaker 1: last that have a population about six people. So this
Speaker 1: is going to be having significant impact. The important thing
Speaker 1: with tuberculosis is that it takes about six months for
Speaker 1: people to actually get a cure. And the issue that
Speaker 1: we're going to be using mobile money with here is
Speaker 1: to ensure that people are being incentivized to stay and
Speaker 1: continuing to complete their treatment programs so we didn't have
Speaker 1: more disease resistant forms of tuberculosis arise. So the i
Speaker 1: C T aspect information technology communication technology aspect is the
Speaker 1: mobile money? Are there other ways in which you're using
Speaker 1: I c T to fight tuberculosis? Certainly, in the event
Speaker 1: of being able to use um, you know, mobile forms
Speaker 1: of computing, whether it's tablet computers in terms of putting
Speaker 1: these in the hands of healthcare workers, whether they're working
Speaker 1: in clinics or whether they're actually going out to communities
Speaker 1: to deal with patients on a more localized level. UM.
Speaker 1: Certainly the ability of these tablets and mobile forms of
Speaker 1: computing to ensure that you can try to find ways
Speaker 1: to train people while they're in the field, and then
Speaker 1: not only in terms of training people in the field,
Speaker 1: but also once the information and data is gathered, then
Speaker 1: being able to bring that back in a centralized basis
Speaker 1: fairly quickly, and more importantly, to the extent that this
Speaker 1: information is being gathered as fairly transparent, being able to
Speaker 1: react on a faster basis in terms of trends that
Speaker 1: are developing, and what about where is technology going? This
Speaker 1: is certainly, this is humanitarian, This is work to help people.
Speaker 1: Is there eventually an investment angle here as well? Certainly
Speaker 1: there is an investment angle if you wanted to look
Speaker 1: at mobile money services in Africa. They're primarily operated by
Speaker 1: mobile network operators cell phone companies. The company that actually
Speaker 1: had pioneered the development of Empessa in um Kenya, company
Speaker 1: called Safari Comm is actually a subsidiary of Vodaphone. But
Speaker 1: if one was looking for a pure local play around
Speaker 1: mobile money as well as also mobile network operations. As
Speaker 1: a company headquarter in South Africa, mt N Group there
Speaker 1: over the counter a d R here in the United
Speaker 1: States is mt N o y market caps about fifteen
Speaker 1: and a half billion dollars traded. Uh was up one
Speaker 1: point seven today, closing in a dollars fifty two cents,
Speaker 1: has an average volume about a hundred and sixteen thousand shares,
Speaker 1: So it's it's a liquid named fifteen and a half
Speaker 1: real quick five seconds? Do you own any of these days?
Speaker 1: MTN okay? But hey, well truly certainly gave us an
Speaker 1: interesting idea when it comes to investing in Africa. Gave
Speaker 1: garrity for principle at g B a research and a
Speaker 1: consultant to the World Bank, on some very important work
Speaker 1: being done in Africa. This is taking stock on Bloomberg
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