Poverty has a destabilizing effect on development. Sustainable development programmes therefore often prioritize
innovative poverty reduction interventions. Increasingly, Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)
have become standard in these interventions: from the acquisition, dissemination, management, storage and
access of information to the engagement of multiparty stakeholders using synchronous as well as asynchronous
interactive communications.
Key stakeholders in ICT for development programmes are the poor themselves. Tools, mostly based around the
ubiquitous mobile phone, have been developed to empower low-income earners in their commercial activity
which may include voice, messaging, and even email and other Internet-based communications. Corresponding
mobile services are available through packages representing mixes of traditional voice (PSTN) service and “text”-
based, as well as Internet-based, data services. While these packages offer rich choice, selection from amongst
them is confusing for users and for those developing pro-poor, pro-market interventions.
This paper discusses the implementation of a tool which computes the comparative profile of costs for various
mobile services to achieve specific profiles of communications activities and its application is discussed in the
context of Trinidad and Tobago. The “Mobile Service Cost Profiler” represents a key resource for the planning of
pro-poor, pro-market mobile innovations for sustainable development in the Americas.
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