Grameen telecom : the village phone program
Subhash Chandra Bhatnagar, Magüi Moreno Torres, Ankita Dewan, Parameeta Kanungo · 2003
The Village Phone (VP) program is an initiative of the Grameen Bank, a well-known nongovernmental organization (NGO) providing economic assistance to poor villagers in rural Bangladesh. Grameen Bank provides small loans, without collateral, to the villagers, primarily women, for their various income-generating activities. Grameen telecom was created as a telecommunications network that would significantly advance social and economic development in rural Bangladesh by enabling villagers to access the latest business and market information. Villagers, mostly women who are members of the Grameen Bank's micro-credit program, are provided with loans to purchase cell phones. These 'operators' then provide telephone service (making and receiving phone calls) to the villagers, thereby earning enough revenue to repay the loan taken from the Grameen Bank. Grameen telecom buys airtime in bulk from a sister company, Grameen phone, so that it can charge the operator a discounted rate on the airtime used. It is remarkable that, in 1997, when the cell phone was still a technological novelty the world over, Grameen telecom successfully initiated the use of this tool for empowering the rural poor. The VP program is designed to maximize gains for villagers in several ways. First, access to a cell phone at low cost has empowered villagers significantly in their work domain. They now can make phone calls to obtain information vital for their businesses, and can seek new work opportunities directly, thereby reducing their dependence on middlemen. Second, the program has led to the empowerment of the phone operators, primarily poor rural women, who now command respect in the village community by virtue of their new-found economic independence and the fact that villagers depend on them to obtain a valuable service.