We recently announced that Etisalat Group had been awarded a GSMA mWomen Innovation Fund Grant, and we are delighted to share the news that the offer is now live in both Benin and Togo!

Etisalat, with its Moov affiliates, drew on all the lessons learnt from existing mWomen projects and understood local dynamics to design and launch an integrated mobile offer targeted at rural women called “Weena”. Working with management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, they designed Weena around the wants and needs of local women. It comprises all the key elements required to reach traditionally underserved women, including:

• A distribution mechanism – Female “Weena agents” are equipped with PoS (point of sale) material and trained to service other women within their own communities. Agents are carefully recruited and are often the most influential women within the villages, ensuring the trust of the community they cover, and in return providing them with an additional source of revenue through a commissioning scheme, complemented with a micro-loan to start their activities. Training does not only cover basic mobile products, but also more advanced services, such as mobile money, and paves the way to encourage new behaviours. The Weena agent is empowered as she becomes responsible for the management of her community. 

• A tailored value proposition – Etisalat has analysed consumption and recharge patterns of female users in rural areas and designed a specific offer to better meet their needs. For instance, Weena users benefit from relevant value added services and preferential rates within their community (i.e. closed user group).

• A loyalty scheme – Each Weena customer is automatically enrolled into a loyalty scheme. For each CFA franc she spends, she will receive a bonus as a percentage of her spending. The two innovative components of this loyalty scheme are:
  • the bonus which is not be credited in airtime, but in cash to the customer’s mobile money savings account, and only redeemable towards specific goods
  • the Weena agent who also receives a reward for each product she is selling as virtual money put towards a “community” saving account to be used for community projects designated by the Weena agent and under her management in cooperation with the local operator.

• A bespoke brand – Etisalat has created a sub-brand for women- “Weena by Etisalat” -, which facilitates tailored communication to the target customers, and under which further initiatives can be easily introduced. The Weena brand has dedicated marketing and communication, as well as ambassadors, to make it clear that it is meeting rural women’s specific wants and needs. This brand is the first of its kind to have a multi-country footprint, having already been launched in Togo and Benin. 

• A CSR component – Weena will become a preferred vehicle for Etisalat/Moov to carry out women-specific CSR initiatives involving the women who are the most active in community development and in investing the community’s loyalty bonuses towards the best projects. 

Etisalat is the first operator in Africa to develop a holistic and integrated initiative for low-income women. We look forward to helping them demonstrate the impact and the value of such an ambitious approach, both for women and for the operator, and to encouraging others to follow in their footsteps, in Africa and beyond. More information will be shared in the coming weeks. Stay tuned! 

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