Lawal, Maryam; (2020) A Capabilitarian Account of the Potential of Mobile Money for Rural Poverty Reduction in Bauchi, Northern Nigeria. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Preview

Text Lawal_10092311_id_redacted_thesis.pdf Download (99MB) | Preview

Abstract

The concept of financial inclusion is partly about empowering underserved or unserved individuals with options to engage within a financial system. With the advent of mobile-money, many people living in rural and cash economies can use their mobile phones to access nontraditional means of banking. The ability to use mobile phones for payment and remittance purposes has changed the ways mobile phones and banking are used, because of the opportunity offered to underbanked and unbanked populations in many developing countries. Although there is an increasing amount of research in this area, studies relating mobile money to human development, and more specifically to rural poverty as ‘capability deprivation’ are limited. The capability approach has in recent decades emerged as a theoretical framework for understanding poverty, justice, inequality and human development. Although the approach has been extensively operationalised in varied contexts, there remains scarce overt interaction between the capability approach and the branch of research focused on assessing information and communications technology (ICT) for advancing human development. The capability approach is operationalised here to examine the transformative potential of ICTs in human development. In particular, the study assesses the effect of mobile-money on human capabilities of poor and rural individuals in Bauchi State, Northern Nigeria. Research insights are thus used to produce a capabilitarian account through which mobilemoney is evaluated in terms of its ability to expand or obstruct people’s valued human capabilities to achieve their ideas of ’the good’. Secondary evidence synthesised with empirical discoveries suggest that mobile-money is valuable if the range of financial services allow poor people to pursue their wellbeing goals by serving primarily as a savings platform and a facilitator of quick and dependable payments and transfers. While a proportion of rural populations are included (through capability expansion) in the mobile-money ecosystem, some remain inevitably excluded (through capability obstruction), and therefore still deprived in terms of their capabilities as a result of mobile-money. In conclusion, challenges relating to accessibility, affordability and awareness need to be adequately addressed in order for mobile-money to attain its transformative potential of reducing rural poverty. By exploring how mobile-money plays a role in enhancing or obstructing human capabilities, this study demonstrates that the capability approach lends itself to making a more robust analysis that allows a theorisation of the link between ICTs and human development.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVJSONXML

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as CSVJSONXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item