World Bank launches a laboratory on mobile technologies in Kenya

20 June 2011

Last Thursday, the World Bank inaugurated a laboratory on applications for mobile telephones in Nairobi as part of a program intended to stimulate the development of information and communication technologies (ICT), reports the Xinhua press agency.

"This laboratory will enable dynamic developers in East Africa to exploit the opportunities which exist in the growing market for mobile applications", explained the representative of the World Bank in Kenya, Johannes Zutt, at the launch.

He added that over the past ten years, the ICT sector contributed one percent of annual growth in GDP and that the country must use the success of money transfers by mobile telephone in Kenya to its advantage in order to develop other applications.

The mobile payment system M-Pesa has in fact undergone impressive growth, reports the news website Afrique 7.

In 2007, just seven percent of inhabitants had a bank account, but this percentage is now 40 percent with M-Pesa.
 

Category: ICT