A Basis for Global Optimism

I'm optimistic on the U.S.; I'm even more optimistic on the world.  Remember I grew up when colonialism was ending, and the West was becoming aware of the sad state of affairs the ebbing of imperialism was leaving behind.  (And ignoring some of the benefits.)  And through much of the first half of my adult life we flailed around, struggling with how to help the Third World, finding that many of our prescriptions didn't work as we intended.  So that's the background when I read this in a  Technology Review piece:

But by far, the technology that is likely to be most transformative in the long term is the cell phone. The growth of this technology in sub-Saharan Africa has been phenomenal. By 2007, there were more cell-phone subscriptions than people with access to sanitation. Today, there are more than 850 million subscribers across the entire continent, bringing penetration to roughly 74 percent. Phone-based technology is already helping to create digital health records, track medical supply levels, improve supply chains, and map out areas already covered by vaccination.