GSMA Mobile for Development

A bird’s-eye view of the Samoan digital ecosystem

In April 2019, the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team visited Samoa to work with Innovation Fund grantee SkyEye and their partners. We met with various stakeholders in the market and thought we would take this opportunity to share a few learnings about the tech ecosystem in ...

Mobiles phones as assistive technology for hearing loss

In the UK, there are 11 million people with hearing loss, of which 900,000 have severe hearing loss. As our population becomes older, these numbers are likely to increase.

Working across sectors to enable access to connectivity for refugees

Thursday 16 May, 2019 | Blog | blog | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation

The world is experiencing its highest number of refugees since World War II. Across the globe, 172 countries host 19.9 million refugees. Yet, 93 per cent of all refugees are required to provide a proof-of-identification in order to access a SIM card. 81 refugee-hosting ...

Telefónica’s AxisMed: A digital solution driving private health insurance optimisation in Brazil

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post on how digital health solutions can drive cost efficiency where I introduced Telefónica’s subsidiary, AxisMed – a Brazilian health management intelligence company. We are excited to now share the results of our research! Healthcare ...

Agri value chain digitisation: What is the opportunity for agribusinesses? Ghana Field Focus Week lessons, part two

At our Field Focus Week 2019, the GSMA team together with 25 practitioners, including 11 MNOs, embarked on a trip to rural Ghana to learn about new tools that are digitising the processes involved in collecting farmer and farm data, procuring crops and enabling payments to ...

Meet our portfolio start-ups: Ensibuuko

According to the FinScope 2018 survey, only three per cent of adults in Uganda had borrowed from a commercial bank in the 12 months prior to the survey and 11 per cent of adult savers had done so through a commercial bank. In contrast, approximately 50 per cent of adults who ...

What’s the impact of data localisation requirements on mobile money-enabled remittances?

Recently, a growing number of emerging economies have adopted data localisation requirements as part of their efforts to regulate cross-border data flows. This is the case for example in China, India, Nigeria, Russia, Rwanda and Vietnam. Cross-border data flows are critical ...

Akwaba to the Côte d’Ivoire tech ecosystem!

Between 15 and 20 April 2019, the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team, represented by Gregory Omondi and Maxime Bayen, was in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, with two objectives in mind. Firstly, to work with two of our portfolio start-ups based locally. Secondly, to participate in the ...

What does rapid urbanisation mean for utility service provision? Our takeaways from the AfricaWorks! conference

On 8 and 9 April 2019, the GSMA Mobile for Development Utilities team was thrilled to co-host a workshop on ‘Digital and IT for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)’ at the AfricaWorks! conference on the future of African cities, in Rotterdam. AfricaWorks! is the flagship ...

Supporting waterless flush sanitation through mobile technology – Loowatt

Access to basic sanitation services is a major development and public health challenge in Madagascar where only 10 per cent of the population use at least basic sanitation services[1]. Providing basic sanitation is particularly challenging in Madagascar’s capital, ...

Delivering water to urban homes through smart metering and mobile payments – CityTaps

Water supply disconnections due to non-payment or faulty meters is a common issue for urban residents of Niamey, Niger[1]. Meanwhile, Niger’s national water utility faces challenges serving the poor with affordable and clean running water, while also reducing the physical ...

What did we learn at the Seedstars Global Summit 2019?

The GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team was invited to attend the sixth annual Private Investor Forum at the Seedstars Global Summit, in Lausanne on 4 and 5 April 2019. The event brought together over 1,000 people including start-ups, investors, mentors, mobile operators and ...

Is mobile money the future of cash and voucher assistance?

Monday 15 April, 2019 | Blog | blog | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation

This is the question we posed at a GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H) event last week in Nairobi – where we launched two important handbooks that will support mobile operators and humanitarian organisations to effectively operationalise mobile money enabled ...

One year into Round 2: Updates from the Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund

Back in February 2018, we revealed a new cohort of start-ups from across Asia Pacific and Africa selected for the second round of the Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund. In August 2018, we then updated you on their progress at the six-month mark. Now, a year into working ...

Accelerating clean energy innovations in Africa – our takeaways from the ‘Transforming Energy Access’ conference

This blog post has been co-authored with Nicolas Snel, Senior Insights Manager, Mobile for Development Utilities. On 7 March 2019, the GSMA Mobile for Development (M4D) Utilities team was invited to participate in the conference, ‘Transforming Energy Access: Innovations ...

Digital technologies supporting persons on the autism spectrum

Tuesday 2 April, 2019 | Blog | blog | mHealth | Mobile Health

“Until we create a nation that regularly wants to employ a person with autism, assure for quality education for each person with autism, and eliminates the far too many unnecessary obstacles placed in the way of success for a person with autism, we really won’t be as ...

The case for mobile money enabled CVA programming

Monday 1 April, 2019 | Blog | blog | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation

The humanitarian sector has shifted from a protracted period of research on the potential to use cash to strong recommendations on significantly increasing its use. Moreover, given the benefits of digitising cash and voucher assistance (CVA) –increased transparency, reduced ...

Harnessing the power of agents to drive female inclusion

How much do mobile operators need to adapt? The differing needs of women, in low-and middle-income economies, in accessing digital financial services are well documented. A key question is, how can mobile operators adapt existing distribution networks to accommodate women’s ...

The impact of mobile money on financial sector development

An ever-increasing body of research has demonstrated the positive impact of mobile money on individuals, households and businesses. That said, the extent to which mobile money impacts a country’s macroeconomic and financial sector development has not been fully examined. In ...

Key Success Factors of a National Financial Inclusion Strategy

Governments, through National Financial Inclusion Strategies (NFIS), have the capacity to implement transformative reforms to ensure a wide availability of financial services. Today, we are glad to be launching research into the key success factors of an NFIS which ensures ...

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