Poverty Alleviation
Progress through Connectivity
Around the world, development is attributed to myriad factors. From education to stable governance, hundreds of issues are directly linked with the process of growth. Curiously, connectivity has never been canonized in the same vein and has often been viewed as a peripheral tool rather than a genuine factor towards development. That perspective must change as we, at Grameenphone, understand the essential correlation between connectivity and development. We realize that when a rural farmer purchases a SIM card, he has purchased more than just a means of communication. What he has actually done, is to open up a gateway of hope and possibilities. The ‘mere’ SIM card offers the farmer a level of connectivity that can steer him out of poverty.
But things have not always been this way. For decades, our people were deprived of access to convenient low cost communications. From the ashes of those problems arose mobile telephony and Bangladesh has never been the same since. As the pioneers of mobile telephony in Bangladesh, we have connected more than 20 million people across the country, many of whom previously had little or no access to such communication. The ripple effects of such connectivity can be felt in the larger picture of development in Bangladesh. Access to information transforms lives every day and generates business opportunities through direct and indirect employment. This is where connectivity meets development.
The village phone helps to bring both social and economic empowerment to the rural women as they take center stage in earning a living and setting an inspiring example. Connectivity also brings with it entrepreneurship, such as setting up Community Information Centers (CICs). It drives people to invest in technology and bridge the digital divide, thus helping both individuals and the communities along the way towards development. Connectivity also assists towards making informed business decisions as well as reducing the dependency on middlemen. CellBazaar – an electronic marketplace – facilitates traders with necessary market information and thus contributes towards business growth.
In connecting the unconnected, we have contributed towards bringing the urban to the rural and the rural to the urban, generating employment, increasing GDP, empowered millions and generally making life easier. In our march towards development, no one is left behind and every day we hope to keep connecting the unconnected.
Related CSR Initiatives:
→ Every freedom counts – Village Phone
→ Every opportunity counts – Community Information Center
→ Every enterprise counts - CellBazaar