Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Not Just A Tool. Taking Context Into Account In The Development Of A Mobile App For Rural Water Supply In Tanzania, Robert Hoppe, Anne Wesselink, Rob Lemmens

Robert Hoppe

The 'eGovernance' hype around the potential of mobile phone and geoweb technologies for enhancing 'good governance' is soaring. In East Africa, the extensive use of mobile telephony adds to the imagined promises of ICT. We reflect on the assumptions made by the proponents of such tools, using our own action research project as an example. We took great care to consider context in the development of software for enhancing empowerment and accountability in rural water supply in Tanzania. However, we found that the rural water supply context in Tanzania is much more complex than the contexts for which successful mApps …