From Phone Access to Food Markets: Is Mobile Connectivity Transforming West-African Livelihoods ?
May 17, 2024
Africa stands at a critical crossroads where longstanding local challenges such as high population growth, persistent conflict, and governance issues intersect with a fundamental transformation of official development cooperation. As priorities in donor countries shift toward self-interest, traditional financing approaches will have to be complemented with other sources of capital to meet the financing needs of a rapidly growing population. This offers opportunities, such as gaining sovereignty, but also the risk of greater instability.
Joël Cariolle, research fellow at FERDI, will speak on November 13 and present his study “From Phone Access to Food Markets: Is Mobile Connectivity Transforming West African Livelihoods?” co-authored with David Carroll (Tufts University).
↪ Published in May 2024, this study highlights the role of food demand in explaining price variations. The results show that mobile connectivity not only increases the quantities of food products purchased and consumed, but also reduces self-consumption among connected rural households. Financial inclusion through the adoption of mobile money and income diversification through non-agricultural activities are identified as key mechanisms explaining the increase in food demand.
↪ The results suggest that the reduction in food price dispersion linked to access to mobile networks reflects broader rural transformations, rather than simply improved decision-making by better-informed suppliers, challenging the dominant claims in the existing literature.
