Google Unveils SMS Service For Africa

WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Google on Monday unveiled a new service designed to provide information via SMS text message to mobile phone users in Africa, where cell phones are prevalent but Internet penetration is low.

"At Google we seek to serve a broad base of people -- not only those who can afford to access the Internet from the convenience of their workplace or with a computer at home," the Mountain View, California, company said in a blog post.

"It's important to reach users wherever they are, with the information they need, in areas with the greatest information poverty," Google said. The Internet search and advertising giant noted that Africa has the world's highest mobile phone growth rate and that mobile use on the continent is six times higher than Internet penetration.

"Most mobile devices in Africa only have voice and SMS capabilities, and so we are focusing our technological efforts in that continent on SMS," it said.

Google said Google SMS, which will be available first in Uganda, would provide information, via SMS, on a number of topics including health and agriculture tips, news, local weather and sports. Google also said that it is also launching a service called Google Trader, an SMS-based application that helps bring together buyers and sellers of product or services, from used cars to livestock to jobs.

Google said another service, Google SMS Tips, enables a mobile phone user to have a Web search-like experience. A user enters a text query and Google returns relevant answers after searching a database. Google said Google SMS Tips and Google Trader were developed in partnership with several organizations, including the Grameen Foundation, an offshoot of the pioneering Grameen bank founded by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Source: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090630/ttc-us-uganda-africa-it-telecom-internet-0de2eff.html

Tags: Grameen bank, Mohammed Yunus, Grameen foundation, Google SMS Tips, Google Trader, Uganda, Goolge SMS, Africa, Global IT News, Global Development News, Livestock, Nobel peace prize, IT, tech, technology, web,

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UN Convenes Economic Summit

The United Nations General Assembly opened a three-day conference Wednesday on the global financial crisis. More than 140 countries have sent representatives to the meeting, which hopes to decide on emergency and long-term responses to help ease the impact of the crisis, especially on the world's poorest countries.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the world is still struggling to overcome the worst global financial and economic crisis since the United Nations was founded more than 60 years ago. "It has touched every part of the world," he said. Mr. Ban says he believes it is the responsibility of the developed world to help poorer countries weather the current economic storm.

In April, at the G-20 summit in London, he asked leaders for more than a trillion dollars in financial support for those countries. As the U.N. summit got underway, Mr. Ban said he would press the leaders of the eight leading industrialized nations to honor those commitments when they meet next month in Italy.

"That is why I have just sent a letter to G-8 leaders urging concrete commitments and specific action to renew our resolve," he said. He said his letter stressed the need for resources to help developing countries adapt to climate change and called on leaders to honor pledges of aid to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty and disease by 2015.

There are 192 member states in the United Nations. One hundred forty two sent representatives to the conference. Among them is the Vice President of Honduras, Aristides Mejia Carranza, who explained the economic impact of the financial crisis on his country. "For this year, the decline in remittances, a decline in exports and in tourism have meant a reduction of economic growth to a mere two percent," he said.

He said while that is better than the global average, it would be insignificant for the Honduran economy and could threaten gains made in reducing poverty during the past few years.

Analysts say the effect of the global downturn on Honduras' economy has been almost identical to that in many other developing nations, especially those in Africa - a point highlighted by Zimbabwe's Vice President, Joyce Mujuru.

"At lower levels of development, we are more vulnerable to fluctuations in the world markets," said Mujuru. "Coming on the heels of the food and energy crises, the global financial crisis seriously threatens sustainable economic growth and sustainable development on the [African] continent, and could reverse progress so far attained toward the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals."

During the next three days, the U.N. General Assembly will hear from individual delegations, as well as hold interactive roundtable discussions on mitigating the effects of the world economic crisis on development. Developing urged the United Nations to convene a high-level meeting during a financing and development conference in Doha, Qatar in December, saying they wanted a forum for their voices to be heard. But the planning process leading up to this week's meeting was fraught with difficulties, including attracting high-level participation and negotiating the conference's outcome document.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-24-voa5.cfm

Tags, UN, Ban Ki Moon, Zimbabwe, Joyce Mujuru, Millennium Development Goals, UN General Assembly, Doha, Global Development News, Honduras, Africa, Aristides Mejia Carranza, G-20, G-8,

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Sovereign Wealth Funds

In this recent press release from the World Bank and the Center for Global Development, World Bank President Robert Zoellick weighs in on the current state of global investment.

“Today, sovereign wealth funds hold an estimated $3 trillion in assets. If the World Bank Group can help create the platforms and benchmarks, the investment of even one percent of their assets would draw $30 billion to African growth, development, and opportunity,” he said.

“Zoellick said sovereign wealth funds offered opportunity, “not something to fear”, adding that “the sovereign funds need transparency and should be guided by best practice to avoid politicization. But I believe we should celebrate a possibility that government-sponsored funds will invest equity in development.”

Mr. Zoellick is undoubtedly correct in ascertaining the positive effect that the sovereign wealth funds could have in Africa’s growth and development, but it remains to be seen if it will occur so readily. Undoubtedly Africa’s cache of natural resources will make it an attractive option in some resource-starved circles.

Overall, the emergence of the idea of the Sovereign wealth fund is certainly one of the most interesting developments in the global economics of the 21st century. On the other hand, one might argue that this is not a really new idea in many respects, as much of the globe was developed with the blessing of sovereign funds of one form or another. For example, North America, India, and Australia were “developed” to greater or lesser degrees by British Corporation’s such as the Hudson’s Bay Co., and the East India Co., under the charter of the Royal family.

There’s also no doubt that modern finance and investment markets are markedly different than they were a few centuries ago, and therefore one cannot responsibly compare the modern sovereign wealth fund with it’s colonizing ancestors. However, this does not change the fact well-capitalized corporations representing sovereign nations have ventured to foreign shores looking for great investments before.

Perhaps the major distinction between the contemporary incarnation of the sovereign investment fund and that of its colonizing ancestors (other than the mode of investment itself) are the locations from which these new funds emanate. Singapore, UAE, China, Norway, Saudi Arabia, and Russia are a few of the nations who are using soaring petrodollars, and current account surpluses to invest in overseas equities. In and of themselves, these nascent funds represent a huge transfer of global wealth, principally from the heavily-indebted United States to resource-rich developing nations.

The fact that these funds are investing in brand-name US financial assets, in institutions such as Citigroup, Merrill-Lynch, and The Blackstone Group, should not be very surprising as with a declining USD, the best deals for these funds awash in greenbacks are found in USD denominated assets, and therefore world-class assets can be had on the cheap.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Japan “gets in the game” (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20080414a1.html) as it is currently the world’s second largest holder of Foreign currency reserves after China, and its resource needs are perhaps more dire.

Japan is on the record stating that it will pursue “Resource diplomacy” in the foreseeable future (http://www.meti.go.jp/english/), and China is already doing so through its Sovereign Wealth funds, by recently buying stakes in both British Petroleum and Rio Tinto Brasil.

Welcome to the brave new world of global capital and geopolitics.

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