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A range of development projects is based on the conviction that mobile communication is an important step forward in the acquisition of information and thus for development, also referred to as ICT4D. This book offers an in-depth analysis of communication and the role of mobile phones in Sokode, a medium-sized town in Togo, linked to an ICT-based citizen monitoring and evaluation platform. It aims to understand new communication possibilities embedded in existing norms, while taking into account their materiality, approaching mobile phone use as a local micro-politics of communication.Although there is broad consensus that the appropriation of mobile phones has fundamentally changed communication, still few empirical studies show how this takes place. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this book draws a vivid picture of how women and men in Sokode assess the possibilities and limitations of mobile phones. By unfolding the ambivalence of mobile phones that simultaneously enable intimacy, public networks and the positioning of civic actors, this book shows that mobile phones do not simply increase civic engagement. However, they can subtly contribute to a sense of civic-ness, albeit in other ways than imagined in the field of ICT4D.