Ghana firm tackles missed business with mobile internet

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Access to mobile internet is driving economic development in Africa but the cost of buying a phone is still a major obstacle for ordinary traders. 85% of the sub-Saharan region is covered by networks but only 25% of people use it according to the mobile lobby group GSMA, now a company in Ghana has a plan to close this digital gap. Cyril Fianyo is a vegetable farmer in a village called Atabu in Ghana’s Volta region. He believes his business has the opportunity to expand now he's able to use the internet on his phone. Fianyo is being shown how to navigate apps that interest him, including a third-party farming app called Cocoa Link that offers videos of planting techniques, weather information and details about the challenges of climate change affecting cocoa and other crops. Previously he was restricted to calls and texts. Now he's registered with a company called Uniti Networks. Fianyo uses his identity card to register with the firm, he's put on a deposit of 340 Ghanaian Cedis ($25) for the smartphone and will pay the remaining 910 Cedis ($66) in installments. Fianyo, who previously planted according to his intuition and rarely interacts with farming advisors, is optimistic that the technology will help him increase his yields. “I like searching on the phone so much,” he says. “When I got it, I saw that this phone is very smart, so I don’t find it difficult to get some information that I want.” At a training session in Hohoe market, Uniti Networks' Rita Quansah teaches a digital literacy workshop to a small group of men and women. Quansah explains, “There are video tutorials as well in the app in Ewe so that those who are not able to even understand the English will be able to watch the videos in their local language.” The mobile lobby group GSMA says the mobile internet has enabled the sub-Saharan region to “leapfrog” certain infrastructure and service gaps by providing access to mobile money where formal banks have failed. Less than 50% of the population has access to a bank account, according to the World Bank. This article was provided by The Associated Press.