The Most Popular Google Search in Rural Zambia – JadedAid Card Stories

I’m on a short term project in Zambia to understand if and how a mobile information service could help smallholder farmers weather climate change (ha ha…pun intended). As part of this activity, I interviewed dozens of farmers about their mobile access and internet use (or lack there of).

For the most part, rural farmers didn’t have internet access at all. Those that did, usually conflated Facebook with the Internet, and only a few could use the internet in the way we were hoping they would: to Google agricultural advice, pest treatments, and crop prices.

However, when given a strong WiFi signal with free, high bandwidth access, they downloaded p_rn. They didn’t say this, but I’m a man too, and I know better.

That got us thinking. What else would matter so much to a rural Zambian that they would invest their limited airtime to discover through their mobile web browser? Hence the JadedAid question card: “The most popular Google search in rural Zambia is ______”

My favorite answers include:

• Capacity building
• An iphone at the bottom of a pit latrine
• Dennis Rodman Diplomacy
• USAID’s secret pleasure

What’s your favorite answer? Have you played JadedAid in rural Zambia and asked this card? Do let us know in the comments!

Posted in Card Stories and tagged Capacity Building, M&E, USAID