MOBILES FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT – 2014 Trends and Gaps
United Nations Development Programme & Motorola Solutions
February 2015 :: 44 pages
[Excerpts]

Executive Summary
The rapid diffusion of mobile technologies around the globe has triggered new opportunities to enhance human development. Indeed, mobiles can bring basic services and information to billions of people at the bottom of the pyramid, foster democratic governance by giving people a voice in key decision-making processes that affect their lives, and promote transparency and accountability in both the public and private sectors…

…In this light, this report aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by first, focusing on development and developing countries, second, taking a closer look at local innovators, and third, linking social innovation to development priorities. In doing so, the report builds on the data we have collected from both primary and secondary sources to provide evidence-based suggestions on how we can better harness mobile technologies to confront critical development issues in concrete fashion.

The development categories used for our analysis include poverty reduction, education, health and governance, all of which are key areas of development. In turn, each development category was further subcategorized to further refine insights about actual trends and potential gaps in these areas. The subclassifications are based on the work that UNDP, UNESCO and WHO, among others, undertake on the ground in developing countries

The key findings of the report can be summarized as follows:
:: A wide disparity of activities among the four core development categories. Poverty reduction activities are pervasive, representing half of all sampled work, while health and governance lag behind. Education falls in between and represents one out of every four interventions.
:: Each region under analysis prioritizes a particular category of activity thus suggesting key regional differences per development category. While Africa drives poverty reduction activities, Latin America leads in governance, and education-related activities are a priority in industrialized countries.
:: Private sector development (poverty), lifelong learning and ICTs in education (both in
education), HIV and development (health), and access to information and e-governance (governance) represent the most prominent activities in each respective development category.
:: Specific regions are key drivers for these subcategories: Africa for private sector development, lifelong learning (excluding industrialized countries) and HIV and development, and Latin America for ICTs in education and access to information and e-governance.
:: In terms of gaps, activities on e-business (which includes m-business), m-learning and m-health seem to be lagging vis-a-vis other subcategories.
:: There is an overall gap in gender equality and women’s empowerment activities in all
regions and subregions.
:: In the era of social media, crowdsourcing and e-democracy, it is surprising that governance activities are at the bottom of our development category structure…

Motorola Solutions Foundation and UNDP release new research report: Increasing the potential of mobile technologies to advance human development
Press Release – 09 Feb 2015
The UNDP Mobiles for Human Development 2014: Trends and Gaps report compiled and analysed almost 2,500 cases worldwide of practitioners (government institutions, private sector or civil society organisations, and individuals) using mobile technologies to improve the delivery of basic services and information, foster transparency and accountability in both public and private sectors, and enhance human development.
Patrick Keuleers, Director of Governance and Peacebuilding, UNDP Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) stated, “The research has highlighted critical gaps that need to be addressed by development practitioners, social innovators and application developers at the global, national and local levels. One gap we could address together is how to link innovations in mobile apps with development efforts. This research report helps to frame our thinking on how to support further mobile engagement in the implementation and monitoring of the new Sustainable Development Goals which will be part of the UN post-2015 development agenda.”
Research findings note that the use of mobile technologies for development (M4D) is pervasive. Half of M4D activities sampled for this study focus on poverty reduction, while the rest focus on education, followed by health and governance.. When it comes to M4D activities in health, half takes place in Africa, with Eastern Africa leading in the efforts to address HIV and to strengthen health systems.