GBF Addresses Rural Connectivity, Empowerment

Dr. Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, president, Growing Businesses Foundation (GBF), has harped on the importance of connecting the rural areas in this information age as part of the efforts to bridge the digital divide.

In her presentation last week at the Abuja CTO ’08 Summit, she emphasized how rural connectivity can be financed through public private collaborations in order to bring telecom services to the underserved.

Growing Businesses Foundation (GBF) through the Rural Telephone Project (RTP), according to Nnoli-Edozien has been at the forefront in facilitating connectivity and economic empowerment and independence among the rural poor through various strategies it has adopted over time.

She informed that RTP has helped in making first class affordable communications available in rural areas by providing phones, recharge cards, yagi antenna and solar panels so that ‘phone ladies’ can operate in rural locations where the signal strength is typically low. ‘Phone ladies’ receive special tariffs since they operate in low income area, thereby enhancing their competitiveness, and in order to guard against misapplication of the special tariffs, SIM cards can are locked to a specific base station since the agreement covers a limited geographical area.

She said GBF has eight Microfinance Institutions as partners and has a presence in almost 30 states of the federation, having been able to increase the number of these small time rural operators to 4,500 till date; adding that they have been able to develop projects to cater to the needs of the private and public sectors as well as civil society, creating win-win scenarios.

GBF Statistics have shown that 42,764 call hours and 256,584 call minutes, are recorded monthly and over eight million naira generated from MTN to MTN calls in rural areas where the RTP has been introduced; while urging other operators to embrace the initiative as the rural people appreciate brands more than anyone else, since they transform their lives.

She said it is so amazing that one puts a little amount of money on people and that money is returned a hundred fold as has been experienced in the RTP so far, even as she expressed regrets at such situations where rural dwellers would have to travel long distances just to make phone calls.

Nnoli-Edozien stated that this is a time for collaboration rather than competition among operators to better the lives of the rural poor and enable them achieve their aspirations.

GBF was founded in 1999 and aims at facilitating access to commercial credits for micro and small enterprises. It has become a market leader in providing access to rural telecom services, having penetrated almost every part of Nigeria.