LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE 360 SERIES – AFRICA: Mobile technology can be used to address some of the problems faced by Africa’s internally displaced people (IDPs), Sudatel CSO Nazar Arabi (pictured) said, such as by connecting with family, accessing health and security information, and obtaining financial services.

IDPs are refugees displaced within a country, but not across an international border.

Following the conflict in Darfur in 2003, a significant number of people in Sudan “moved from rural areas to the outskirts of the cities, and now the peace has come, these IDP camps have become the kind of new villages for these people,” Arabi said.

Of the six biggest camps, four have access to mobile networks – meaning there is still some work to be done around coverage. While penetration and spending are low, there is some use of internet services – 30 per cent of inhabitants were deemed active internet users.

Refugee services
The Sudatel executive talked about two initiatives.

First was a healthcare information service delivered via SMS to refugees. Key to this was partnerships, for example with humanitarian organisations: “As MNOs we have the capability to do that, but we don’t know what is the content, what is the right time,” he said.

Second was the distribution of free internet packages for users in the camps, which “for mobile operators is not sustainable” – he described it at launch as a CSR activity. However, Sudatel also took an approach of “crowdfunding within our own base,” so for example a customer buying 500Mb of data could opt to take 400Mb, and donate the rest to IDPs.

“The idea can be expanded. What if we have developed countries contributing to these data bundles – a customer in Europe or the USA sending data to support these IDPs. The good news is that mobile operators have the financial reconciliation systems in place, which is used for interconnection and roaming,” he said.

In order to ensure such efforts are sustainable, Arabi is a supporter of pubic private partnerships (PPPs), where each party can focus on its own strengths to deliver value.