Abstract:

There is relatively little known about the use of mobile phones in achieving national socioeconomic development agendas. This research fills the gap by presenting mobile phones as the enablers of Vision2020 goals in Bangladesh. This research seeks to investigate the uses of mobile phones to promote socioeconomic development of the rural SMEs. The findings from 32 interviewees suggest that mobile phones can assist the government of Bangladesh in achieving vision2020 by providing a distribution channel for good governance, poverty alleviation, health, education, human resource and empowerment programs. The opportunities to use mobile phone for rural SMEs sustainability, as a platform for collaborative learning, as a tool for lifelong development for SMEs, are rarely addressed in prior studies. Since most of the literature approach mobile phones use for socioeconomic development from the consumer standpoint, this is one of the few papers that collected data from the SMEs to understand their obstacles and also from the service providers, such as government officers, NGOs experts, university teachers, doctors and banker, to provide more insights on the development mechanisms using mobile phones. Therefore, the outcomes and results of this research will be of potential value to the service providers in achieving Vision2020 goals in Bangladesh and in other developing countries.