This manual is an invaluable how-to source for setting up a Village Phone project. It contains a realistic, practical, and detailed set of instructions, templates, and lessons learned, and it is generic enough to be applied in any context where a Village Phone initiative can help empower people and promote development. It draws on Grameen’s experience in both Bangladesh and Uganda and establishes a template for creating sustainable initiatives that simultaneously bring telecommunications to the rural poor, create viable new businesses for microentrepreneurs, and expand the customer base of telecommunications companies. No two implementations of the Village Phone project will be exactly alike. Each country will have unique variables, participants and environments. However, it is expected that there will be common structures, applications, and processes – all of which are described in detail in the manual.
UN ICT Task Force Series 10