Learning from big corporation monopolies - story of Zain

The small African villages may not have cement, brick, running water, clinic, electricity, or even place to defecate, but every single village - no matter how small or remote, has at least one building covered in purple and green - the color of Zain, the Dubai based internet/telecom provider company.

Thinking from the larger scheme of rural development and poverty alleviation, it is strikingly evident how a huge role these large multi-national telecom corporations can play in increase the living standards of even the poorest of the poor - simply by the sheer of their outreach. While the American public and government are myopically focused on NGOs, international organizations like UNDP, UNEP, world food programme etc, I saw no trace presence of any NGO, UN organization,IGOs of any sort in most of the villages. The dillusion of elevating the idealistic mission/vision of these humanitarian organizations on a pedestal is so persistent that we fail to look at what organizations/entities actually consistently get to the local village level.

Zain and Coca Cola for instance are not only visible in a village, but they are visible to every person. There may not be a single Zain worker in the villages, but they be sure to paint every village with a purple house. If the UN came through any of these villages, they certainly didn't do a good job of advertising themselves.

In most cases however, there will also be a Zain distributor or operator in each village. If for anything, they provide cell phone service. Thus the villagers can have nothing, not even adequate food or clothing, but they have cell phones to communicate with the outside world. At the end of the day, what kind of organizations is really helping these people is up to debate. But is it the world food programme, world bank or the UNDP that funnel billions of aid through the government, with 70% of the aid embezzled by govt officials, forcing them to spending another billions on corruption probes? or small NGOs that take years to even manage one or two trial villages with electricity/clinic/school and in 10 years of time can't even cover five villages in the same tribe?