Much mobile phone use (certainly in the DRC) is to solve problems that people shouldn’t have in the first place. It is strongly related to precarity. For the wealthy and secure, the mobile phone is of minor importance – the wealthiest often don’t have one, or forget to take it with them and joke that they can’t remember its number. For illegal migrants and asylum seekers, it is a lifeline.

Mobiles in the DRC: not a revolution, unfortunately