This study considered the impact of mobile money on well-being and development from a capability perspective using data from the Upper East Region of Northern Ghana. The evidence suggests varied capability enhancing benefits of mobile money use, ranging from empowerment to participate in the financial system, to choice, and agency to meet various functionings that contribute to better well-being outcomes in employment, health, and education. Erratic power supply and a poor network signal in some communities are unfreedoms that need removing for people to take advantage of the huge well-being and human development potential of mobile money. The long-term dependency on family and social networks for monetary support is a capability diminishing feature of mobile money. The study findings support the necessity to adopt a multifaceted and pragmatic conceptualisation of development in information and communication technology for development research.
A growing number of countries are adopting e‐government to deliver greater operational efficiency, cost savings and transparency. The current wave of globalization and the integration of the world economy have intensified international trade volumes. Thus, the prospect of development through trade has driven some countries sub‐Saharan Africa to adopt information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly electronic data interchange (EDI) to facilitate international trade. This paper applies Amartya Sen's Capability Approach (CA) as a framework to examine the effect of an e‐government initiative intended to modernise customs operational procedures and facilitate trade. E‐trade facilitation has given individuals and businesses the opportunity to lodge import and exports declarations electronically with a single document, resulting in time and cost savings as declarations can be made electronically from any location and at any time. The paper makes a contribution by offering a useful example of the affordances of the CA for examining e‐government initiatives particularly in developing countries focusing on what people can actually do with the opportunities provided by e‐government, rather than using income‐based measures.
The study demonstrates the value of AR from a socio-technical perspective for improving existing systems in healthcare settings. The steps adopted in this study could be applied to improve similar systems. A follow-up study will be essential to assess the sustainability of the improved system.
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