Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

LEADERS: "The power of mobile money: Mobile phones have transformed lives in the poor world. Mobile money could have just as big an impact," The Economist, 26 September 2009.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Mobile marvels: A special report on telecoms in emerging markets," by Tom Standage, The Economist, 26 September 2009.

Editorial's brilliant start:

Once the toys of rich yuppies, mobile phones have evolved in a few short years to become tools of economic empowerment for the world's poorest people. These phones compensate for inadequate infrastructure, such as bad roads and slow postal services, allowing information to move more freely, making markets more efficient and unleashing entrepreneurship. All this has a direct impact on economic growth: an extra ten phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts GDP growth by 0.8 percentage points . . ..

I recently got a snotty email from a "reader" who claimed to know my books and articles and was perplexed by this "connectivity" thing I was pushing. How was I going to bamboozle the entire American public into having our military invade the entire Gap in order to foster this dubious "connectivity"?

Well, this good fellow was having none of that!

Gosh, maybe people inside the Gap will want connectivity at less than gunpoint, DOYATHINK?! Maybe people other than the West will be involved. Maybe Americans other than gov bureaucrats, maybe U.S. civilians other than our military . . . Maybe, maybe, maybe this whole thing is bigger than whose regime we topple, not because we impose but because the locals desperately want it.

I just had to laugh. There is nothing more pathetic than the paranoid who wants to believe it's all about American conspiracies.

More than 4B handsets globally now, with 3/4ths used in developing world. In Africa, 40% have them. The developing world, as recently as 2000, accounted for only 25% of the world's 700m mobile handsets. Africa features the fastest growth--befitting its emerging status as globalization's hottest frontier.

So now comes the great wave of mobile banking, bypassing cattle, mattresses, traditional banks and post offices and even credit cards.

Ground zero is Kenya, whose mobile money M-PESA is taking off like wildfire. Not only that, but those who use it have seen household incomes rise 5-30% in the short time.

CANYOUBELIEVEIT? No U.S. troops were involved!

Ah, but financial innovation is inherently evil, is it not? Doesn't it always serve the rich and never the poor? Isn't the Gap always screwed by it in the end?

Yes, yes, this connectivity thing may have some uses, after all.