As announced in a previous blog post, HNI Madagascar has been awarded a GSMA mWomen Innovation Fund grant to further develop its 3-2-1 mobile information service with new content specifically designed for Malagasy women. GSMA mWomen recently paid a trip to Madagascar and had the opportunity to join a few of the focus group discussions organised by HNI – the key findings resulting from the trip are summarised below.

Ranked 56 out of 135 countries by the World Economic Forum in its 2013 Gender Gap report[1], Madagascar remains a challenging country when it comes to gender equality. While the constitution protects women from gender-based discrimination, the lack of sufficient public services, deteriorating infrastructures and the relatively low female literacy rate (only 62% of adult women are reported to be literate, as of 2009[2]) makes it hard for Malagasy women to be aware of their rights.

However, with 51% of the population having access to a mobile phone, there is an opportunity for mobile operators to bridge this information gap. This opportunity was seized by HNI, who, building upon their existing 3-2-1 information service deployed in partnership with Airtel, is creating the first ever on-demand mobile information service specifically designed for women in Madagascar. While mobile technology alone cannot solve gender issues, it can be a powerful tool to educate both men and women on these questions.

HNI recently conducted focus group discussions to shed light on the wants and needs of Malagasy women in order to craft the new content for the service. The participants in Antananarivo, Madagascar were men and women between the ages 19 and 41, with primary or secondary levels of education, mostly living in urban and peri-urban areas. Three different groups of each gender were formed of mobile subscribers, users of the existing 3-2-1 service, and those without mobile phones.

Besides the usual information requirements around health, family planning, economic empowerment, and job alerts, the following needs also emerged:

–        The meaning of equal rights.   Participants had very revealing views when asked whether women should have the same rights as men. For some women, they should be seen as a little inferior; otherwise their husbands would “take advantage” by not giving them money for the household anymore. For others, that would mean women would go out and get drunk like their husbands, neglecting their children.  These fears expressed around equality highlight a misunderstanding of what having equal rights would actually entail. There is therefore an opportunity to explain some of the concepts behind the tagline of equal rights for men and women:   for instance, the right to be equally respected and the right to have equal access to opportunities free of sexual harassment, a prevalent issue in Madagascar.

–        Children’s education. While most participants believe girls and boys should have the same rights to education, there were still entrenched notions that education would be more helpful for boys because they will be providing for their families whereas it is enough for girls to know how to read and write because they will stay at home and take of the children. Moreover, even though women deplored their husbands’ lack of help with the housework, some were still preserving traditional gender roles at home and not asking their boys for help because “it is not a man’s job.” There is a good opportunity for information on the importance of equal access to education for both girls and boys to preclude the next generation from being conditioned to repeat the same patterns of behaviour to the detriment of women.

–        Relationship advice.“My husband used to beat me until we both saw on television that it is against the law then he stopped,” said one of the participants. Perhaps simple marital advice for both men and women to provide clarity around appropriate behaviour in a relationship may be a first step to remedy and prevent these situations.

Based on the information collected from focus group discussions and phone-based questionnaires, HNI will now convene a content committee, made of up of subject matter experts from the development community as well as from the government, to create the new content with the launch expected for early September.  These experts will have the delicate task of ensuring that the information to be delivered takes household power dynamics into careful consideration. There were indeed stated fears by some of the men interviewed that better access to information would lead to disputes because women would “revolt.”

In conclusion, the focus group discussions, conducted with both men and women, revealed the information needs of women as per the original objective. Critically, what also emerged was the information their husbands would like them to have and overall, what men should know about women and their rights. What started out as an information service for women is now set to evolve into a community information service about women. The opportunity to inform and change attitudes with this new content is truly powerful.

Side note on 3-2-1’s performance and business model

One of the strengths of the 3-2-1 service is its magazine-like quality spanning many different topics of interest for the target users including public health, agriculture, micro-finance, water and sanitation, land title and family planning. Since its launch in 2010, 3-2-1 information has been served to over 1 million unique users with Airtel providing over 18,000,000 minutes of free airtime (the first four calls/month are free) proving that free yet sustainable mobile services with social impact are achievable. Indeed, Airtel remains committed to the service andsees it as a differentiator for their brand, as a churn reduction tool and perhaps as importantly as a way to show their subscribers that a phone is not simply a communication tool but can be used for information, mobile money and other purposes. This spillover usage and other indirect benefits will be measured as part of the mWomen grant monitoring & evaluation activities.

Written with the contributions of Elisa Minischetti and Shireen Santosham.

Photo courtesy of HNI
 

[1]http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2013.pdf, page 8

[2] http://databank.worldbank.org/data/views/reports/tableview.aspx#