Of course, there is massive variability as Africa is huge and diverse. But the entire continent has more expensive power than say, Germany, or something.

Also, stuff that is human powered (food, tailoring, etc.) are much cheaper. Again, lots of variability, but food in Ghana is going to be cheaper than food in say, Germany, or the US. Although you can certainly get expensive stuff in some areas (SA, TZ, etc.).

Meanwhile, US mobile data prices are some of the highest in the world. I spend ~$40 month in the US for 2GB of data (before getting capped to low speeds). The last time I was in Kenya, 1GB ran about $4-5, so about 1/5 the price of my US plan. India (post-JIO) is ludicrously cheap right now: I just today got a 1GB/day 28-day plan for ~$5.

But, of course, all of this depends on income as well. The Kenyan data tends to be more expensive for everyday people because they buy it in rather smaller increments than 1GB (250MB or even 100MB at a time), which end up being more expensive per unit.

Here's some data comparing monthly mobile phone costs across the world, with various kinds of normalization, for your perusal: http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/where-are-cheapest-and-m...