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GVA's Garrity on Using Technology to End Tuberculosis (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: point four percent. I'm Charlie Pellett and that's a bloom
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  Speaker 1: Bird business flash. Is taking stock with Kathleen Hayes and
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  Speaker 1: grim Box on Bloomberg Radio Africa. Africa Man he say,
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  Speaker 1: is definitely turned the corner, and one big piece of
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  Speaker 1: that puzzle is technology from tiny startups to major corporations
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  Speaker 1: like General Electric investing in that continent helping it to
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  Speaker 1: move ahead. Someone else who's helping it to move ahead
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  Speaker 1: is joining us now. A regular on the show. Dick Garity,
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  Speaker 1: principle at g v A, research columnists at Investopedia and
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  Speaker 1: also advising the World Bank Group on integrating information and
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  Speaker 1: communication technologies in development projects in Africa. Dave, Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the show. Kathleen, thank you very much. Well, it's really
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  Speaker 1: terrific for our listeners to hear this part of your
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  Speaker 1: story and your work because this is so important, so powerful.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us what you're doing with the World Bank, uh
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  Speaker 1: in terms of I've been consulting with the World Banks
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  Speaker 1: and spent two thousand and ten looking mostly around how
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  Speaker 1: do we use technology to get financial inclusion for people
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  Speaker 1: in Africa? And financial inclusion basically means how do we
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  Speaker 1: give people access to the use of either bank accounts
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  Speaker 1: or access to other formal financial services. This could be microinsurance,
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  Speaker 1: this could be micro loans, but primarily being able to
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  Speaker 1: leverage the technology platform that cell phones represent to be
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  Speaker 1: able to get access to those services. And this has
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  Speaker 1: been instrumental in a number of areas, whether it's doing
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  Speaker 1: you know, utility bill presentation, settlement, paying school fees, wide
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  Speaker 1: range of applications. Could you give us one specific example
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  Speaker 1: that you've worked on, you've been part of, to give
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  Speaker 1: us a sense of how it got you know, what
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  Speaker 1: it is and then the impact it is having. Sure. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: In case in point um just it was less than
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  Speaker 1: months ago, I was in northern Nigeria work in a
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  Speaker 1: project to modernize irrigation districts UM. This is a five
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  Speaker 1: million dollar project that the World Bank is doing with
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  Speaker 1: the Nigerian government. Obviously, the first thing that has to
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  Speaker 1: happen there is that the farmers have to be pay
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  Speaker 1: their irrigation fees. If they don't pay for the water fees,
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  Speaker 1: the irrigation project will fail. UM. Typically, though, you're finding
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  Speaker 1: that these farmers, you know, they're operating in rural locations.
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  Speaker 1: UH they're about a hundred and fifty thousand farmers across
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  Speaker 1: five irrigation districts. And we're going to be implementing UH
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  Speaker 1: mobile money payment programs starting in the second half of
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  Speaker 1: to help assist all this now to the extent that
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  Speaker 1: we can help farmers pay their water fees. Obviously the
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  Speaker 1: protect productivity can improve. They spend less time basically trying
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  Speaker 1: to travel their costs. We're also at the same time
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  Speaker 1: trying to leverage their cell phones to provide other information
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  Speaker 1: to improve their productivity, whether it's crop prices, whether it's
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  Speaker 1: further information in terms of what techniques might be used
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  Speaker 1: to improve their own productivity. But this is a five
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  Speaker 1: million dollar project, it's in it's that's in its third
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  Speaker 1: year right now, but it's really going to start to
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  Speaker 1: take its benefit over the balance of sixteen going tea
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  Speaker 1: into seventeen and eighteen, and just another way to show
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  Speaker 1: how profound the impact can be of information and communication
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  Speaker 1: technolog and she's particularly in poor areas like Africa that
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  Speaker 1: are are really trying to take off in many ways
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  Speaker 1: exceeding a paper you co authored with Paula f Lightel,
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  Speaker 1: a senior social development specialists at the World Bank. It's
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  Speaker 1: about using I c T information communication technologies to support
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  Speaker 1: ending the tuberculosis epidemic in Southern Africa. Tell Us, I
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  Speaker 1: don't think most people realize that the tuberculosis right now
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  Speaker 1: is killing almost as many people as HIV AIDS around
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  Speaker 1: the world. It's actually, according to the World Health Organization,
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  Speaker 1: is killing more people than HIV eight And in the
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  Speaker 1: case of looking at Southern Africa, you've got infection rates
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  Speaker 1: for tuberculosis that are about three times the global average.
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  Speaker 1: And from that standpoint, we're in a situation where, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, being able to control tuberculosis is going to
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  Speaker 1: be very important in terms of addressing a major public
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  Speaker 1: health issue. And this is a project that the Bank's
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  Speaker 1: working on and it's going to be going forward over
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  Speaker 1: the next five years. It just recently got approval and
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  Speaker 1: we're going focusing on countries such as Zambia Mozambique, allowing
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  Speaker 1: last that have a population about six people. So this
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  Speaker 1: is going to be having significant impact. The important thing
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  Speaker 1: with tuberculosis is that it takes about six months for
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  Speaker 1: people to actually get a cure. And the issue that
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  Speaker 1: we're going to be using mobile money with here is
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  Speaker 1: to ensure that people are being incentivized to stay and
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  Speaker 1: continuing to complete their treatment programs so we didn't have
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  Speaker 1: more disease resistant forms of tuberculosis arise. So the i
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  Speaker 1: C T aspect information technology communication technology aspect is the
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  Speaker 1: mobile money? Are there other ways in which you're using
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  Speaker 1: I c T to fight tuberculosis? Certainly, in the event
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  Speaker 1: of being able to use um, you know, mobile forms
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  Speaker 1: of computing, whether it's tablet computers in terms of putting
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  Speaker 1: these in the hands of healthcare workers, whether they're working
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  Speaker 1: in clinics or whether they're actually going out to communities
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  Speaker 1: to deal with patients on a more localized level. UM.
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  Speaker 1: Certainly the ability of these tablets and mobile forms of
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  Speaker 1: computing to ensure that you can try to find ways
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  Speaker 1: to train people while they're in the field, and then
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  Speaker 1: not only in terms of training people in the field,
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  Speaker 1: but also once the information and data is gathered, then
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  Speaker 1: being able to bring that back in a centralized basis
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  Speaker 1: fairly quickly, and more importantly, to the extent that this
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  Speaker 1: information is being gathered as fairly transparent, being able to
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  Speaker 1: react on a faster basis in terms of trends that
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  Speaker 1: are developing, and what about where is technology going? This
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  Speaker 1: is certainly, this is humanitarian, This is work to help people.
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  Speaker 1: Is there eventually an investment angle here as well? Certainly
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  Speaker 1: there is an investment angle if you wanted to look
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  Speaker 1: at mobile money services in Africa. They're primarily operated by
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  Speaker 1: mobile network operators cell phone companies. The company that actually
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  Speaker 1: had pioneered the development of Empessa in um Kenya, company
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  Speaker 1: called Safari Comm is actually a subsidiary of Vodaphone. But
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  Speaker 1: if one was looking for a pure local play around
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  Speaker 1: mobile money as well as also mobile network operations. As
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  Speaker 1: a company headquarter in South Africa, mt N Group there
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  Speaker 1: over the counter a d R here in the United
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  Speaker 1: States is mt N o y market caps about fifteen
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  Speaker 1: and a half billion dollars traded. Uh was up one
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  Speaker 1: point seven today, closing in a dollars fifty two cents,
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  Speaker 1: has an average volume about a hundred and sixteen thousand shares,
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  Speaker 1: So it's it's a liquid named fifteen and a half
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  Speaker 1: real quick five seconds? Do you own any of these days?
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  Speaker 1: MTN okay? But hey, well truly certainly gave us an
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  Speaker 1: interesting idea when it comes to investing in Africa. Gave
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  Speaker 1: garrity for principle at g B a research and a
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  Speaker 1: consultant to the World Bank, on some very important work
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  Speaker 1: being done in Africa. This is taking stock on Bloomberg
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