GSMA mWomen awards Innovation Fund grants to mobile operators Etisalat and Orange

It is our pleasure to announce Etisalat Africa and Orange Mali as the latest recipients of our GSMA mWomen Innovation Fund Grants, joining Tigo Tanzania, our first grant recipient.

The Etisalat mWomen project will develop a mobile value proposition specially designed for resource-poor women, taking into account the barriers to women’s adoption (cost, cultural barriers, technical literacy, and perception of value). The offering will be supported by a tailored distribution channel aimed at better serving underserved village communities. Etisalat will pilot the project in an African market and will contemplate replication across the footprint should the approach be proven successful.

Orange Mali will develop a product to address pregnant women’s needs. In a market where both fertility and maternal mortality rates are high, Orange will offer women a savings and micro-insurance service via Orange Money to cover delivery costs and potential health complications.  Orange Mali is partnering with mobile financial services expert MFS Africa, the global health non-governmental organization PSI, and pan-African insurer NSIA.

We are excited to work with our new partners, whose work will contribute to GSMA mWomen’s objective of promoting access to and usage of mobile and mobile services for resource-poor women in emerging markets.  We look forward to sharing the results and lessons from these deployments with the broader community.

Meanwhile, the application period for Innovation Fund grants for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has come to a close. We will announce the new grant awards in October. Finally, we have just launched our next round of grants including separate streams for mobile operators and NGOs working with operators.

The GSMA mWomen Global Development Alliance is a programme in partnership with USAID, AusAID, GSMA and Visa Inc.  

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