How PDAs Are Saving Lives In Africa

Mark Goldberg writes "UN Dispatch, the United Nations affairs blog I write, just posted an item that may interest this community. Joel Selanikio, a medical doctor and technologist, writes to us from Zambia to relay how PDA devices are quietly revolutionizing public health services in sub-Saharan Africa. Selanikio runs a non-profit called DataDyne.org that trains local health officials to use PDAs equipped with an open source software tool to track outbreaks, coordinate vaccination efforts, and perform other vital public health tasks. So far, says Selanikio, the pilot program in Zambia has been a resounding success.

Re:Unfortunate naming

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Africans spend very little time playing first person shooters. Too much like real life.

History repeats...

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Over a quarter century ago, I worked with a telecom firm that was developing a low powered satellite PBX that would provide a mini-telephone exchange for use in remote parts of Africa. One of the unintended consequences of providing this technology was an almost immediate rise in prices received for the community's goods. Previously, not knowing what the goods were worth at market in the coastal cities, these communities sold their produce/livestock at bargain prices. After, armed with current coastal market prices, they did a better job of getting near-market prices for their produce.

This story seems to me to be another page from the same book; the more information the community has about itself, and can share with others, the better the quality of life for the community. With so much horror in Africa these days, it's heartening to hear a good news story.

OK, here it is

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Here's your expected comment:

Until Africa stabilizes itself politically, improving public health feels good and makes everyone look humanitarian, but it really just creates a much larger problem involving overpopulation and ecological disaster.

I read this again just the other day in the Times -- all the feel-good Western "help" programs that "improve" the lives of Africans have largely just increased the population to the extent that there is no longer farmland that can be meaningfully subdivided in Africa, forcing people into urban areas where they live in poverty and join in whatever military coup that comes down the pike (free drugs, an AK-47 and a chance to kill your rivals).

And this is when the programs *work* -- when they don't work, all we end up doing is lining the pockets of thugs like Robert Mugabe, Daniel Arap Moi, and enabling proto-thugs like Thabo "AIDS is a conspiracy, take this folk remedy" Mbeki.

Repeat After Me: Westerns Cannot Save Africans. Only Africans can Save Africans. When Africans have a stable political system they can (easily!) solve many of these basic problems like clean water, healthcare, etc. Until then, "solving" these problems by Africans means dying by machete/mortar/7.62x39 round in political infighting instead of malaria.

And while I'm on my soap box, where are all the Westerners (generally leftists) who were so behind all the African "freedom fighters" in the 1960s and 70s? Shouldn't they be accepting some of the blame for putting into power some of these unbelievably corrupt African regimes?

(Thanks, I'll gladly repost for the next Western-geek-tech-saves-Africa article).