The INFO Project Blog

“Can the cellphone end global poverty?” Sara Corbett’s article in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine points to new ways Nokia and other mobile phone manufacturers are getting their product to remote rural areas, way off the land line grid.

At the moment, Africa makes up just 7.2% of the 2.7 billion mobile phone users worldwide. But the numbers are growing fast:  in 2006, 55.3 million more mobile phone subscribers were added, and already, 45% of African villages are covered.

To expand access, Corbett writes that Nokia asks its developers to think about how the other half lives:

How do you make a phone that can be repaired by a streetside repairman who may not have access to new parts? How do you build a phone that won’t die a quick death in a monsoon or by falling off the back of a motorbike on a dusty road?

Other manufacturers are, so to speak, dreaming of Africa (or at least, Africans’ growing buying power). Corbett writes that, since access to reliable electricity is a major barrier, Motorola now provides free solar-powered charging kiosks to female entrepreneurs in Uganda. Read the rest of this entry »

We were interested to see news regarding a recent restriction of advocacy and promotion of condoms and other forms of modern contraception in the state of Anambra, Nigeria. The state commissioner for health explains “The use of condoms has greatly encouraged immorality” and sexual education for children should emphasize abstinence.

Read about the changes, the controversy and the reasons for this restriction on UN’s humanitarian news and analysis site, IRIN.

Join colleagues around the world in an online discussion forum from April 23 - May 2, 2008. Health professionals will share their experiences with female condoms in diverse service delivery settings. This forum will be an opportunity to review the latest guidance on female condoms featured in Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers and exchange information and experiences with colleagues who are working to provide high-quality family planning services.

Register for free

The discussion will be guided by the interest of the participants. Topics will include integration of female condoms into family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs, opportunities for male involvement, strategies for encouraging commitment and participation of governments, donor agencies and civil society in female condom programming, as well as practical guidance related to female condom use and counseling. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Stephanie Sinclair, one of global health’s most powerful lenswomen, has photographed children forced into marriage as young as eight. Her intimate portraits of girls in Nepal, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, first published in the the New York Times Magazine, have won accolades from UNICEF. Now, combined with priceless audio recordings of these girls’ stories, the images become yet more powerful in a The Bride Price: Consequences of Child Marriage Worldwide, a 6 minute video that you can watch on the International Center for Research on Women’s YouTube channel.