Alternative Development Indicators: Mobile Phones

Once again an overlap with Economics - the two disciplines do go hand in hand (Econ obviously emerging out of Economic Geography into it's own distinctive discipline...) - as my A-level students were convinced that they had looked at mobile phone use, subscription and ownership as a key alternative development indicator (Mr Chong!), which would make sense as many of the world's poorest and vulnerable people do own pay as you go phones; especially in light of the micro credit schemes in India and the ability to transfer information/money via the web combined with old handsets flooding into Sub-Saharan Africa and SE Asia. So thanks to Simon A for the following posts - enjoy exploring - the International Human Development Indicators website (http://hdr.undp.org/en/) is brilliant, especially the Data Explorer section (reminiscent of Hans Rosling's lectures on Ted.com - click here and here).

Ok so here is the interesting stuff...enjoy:

Now time for a simple and quite up-to-date list of total number of mobile phones in use - can you guess which country is top?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use
This one per capita:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel_mob_cel_percap-telephones-mobile-cellular-per-capita

An in-depth study on mobile phones and development (a clear link to the Technological Fix) for A2 Edexcel is available here: http://www.ejisdc.org/ojs2/index.php/ejisdc/article/viewFile/529/265

Other Links:
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/10/18/international-aid-and-mobile-cash-transfers/