Ethiopia Lags Behind in Mobile Phone Penetration
Ethiopia lags behind the rest of the world in mobile phone penetration and using the technology for private sector development and economic growth, says a new UN report.
Even though value added mobile services such as mobile money, mobile broadband internet are crucial for private sector development, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Burundi and Rwanda lag behind the rest of the world in mobile phone penetration.
This is indicated in the Information Economy Report 2011 released today (October 19, 2011) by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in collaboration with the United nations economic commission for Africa.
In 2010, Ethiopia’s mobile phone penetration stands at 7 percent only becoming better than Somalia, Eritrea and North Korea, while Kenya’s stand at 61 percent and Botswana and South Africa reached 117 percent and 100 percent, respectively.
Responding to the question why mobile phone penetration of is low in Ethiopia, “The reason Ethiopia is under-performing is related to policy issues,” said Remi Lang, Economic Affairs officer at UNCTAD at the launching of the report.
“Completion doesn’t work for everything. But it works for mobile phone service expansion,” he said, advising the government to open the currently government-monopolized telecom services for competition for different service providers.
According to the report, countries such as neighboring Kenya and Uganda have been using mobile technologies such as mobile money for transferring remittances and making transaction easy benefiting their economies.
In addition to mobile money, the report has also stressed the need for expansion of broadband internet services in order to avoid corruption and unnecessary bureaucracy by making tax and other transactions online.
