Angela Okune: This paper is relevant for this PECE essay because it ties together the continued rhetoric and frames of approaching "African development" that start with British colonial policies related to African education to IMF/World Bank approaches to funding "development" to contemporary investigations and interventions by technology companies such as IBM.
This 2018 paper echoes the strategy adopted by colonial policy makers of the British colonies in Africa to adapt a less academic and more agricultural curriculum for African needs. The emphasis (as noted by Ball 1983) was "*not* to attract the African away from the land into the modern sector of the colonial economy" but rather the general aim of such education was to "develop habits of steady industry" leading to a "settled and thriving peasantry." Similarly, it appears in this contemporary paper that the use of technology is not to attract the "African" away from the land but rather to empower him to be more technology savvy (and more productive on his small individual plot of land?). Mobile technology is seen as essential to help rural farmers improve their farming yields and address the increased pressure on their resources caused by population increases and climate change. This efficiency-maximizing approach also echoes World Bank approaches to development.