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“Usability and skills”: How mobile operators can help close the mobile gender gap by improving the usability of their services and women’s skills

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This is one of a series of blogs that deep dives into our framework to help mobile operators close the gender gap in their customer base. This blog focuses on one of the five themes that we believe mobile operators should focus on to address the most common barriers ...

“Relevance”: How mobile operators can improve the relevance of their services for women to help close the mobile gender gap

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This is one of a series of blogs that deep dives into our framework to help mobile operators close the gender gap in their customer base. This blog focuses on one of the five themes that we believe mobile operators should focus on to address the most common barriers ...

Why COVID-19 has increased the urgency to reach women with mobile technology

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As COVID-19 inevitably spreads across low- and middle-income countries resulting in tragic health and economic impacts, lockdowns, uncertainty and misinformation, a mobile phone can be a lifeline. Mobile is the primary way most people in these settings access the internet, ...

Announcing the Launch of the GSMA Innovation Fund for Mobile Internet Adoption and Digital Inclusion

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Mobile networks have become the primary way of accessing the internet in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), driving economic growth, enabling access to life-enhancing services, and creating multiple opportunities for people and businesses to thrive. In fact, at a time ...

M-Koba: Vodacom Tanzania’s Innovation to Digitise Savings Groups

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“My younger sister was getting married in December 2019. As her elder sister, it was my responsibility to make sure that her day turned out exactly as she always dreamt of growing up. She had to look her best on the day and I needed extra money to make this happen.” Romana ...

10 years since the launch of the GSMA Connected Women Programme: Reflections on Progress

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This is an important year for reflection and renewed commitment to gender equality. It is 25 years since the landmark Fourth World Conference on Women where world leaders adopted a clear blueprint for achieving gender equality: the Beijing Declaration and Platform for ...

Econet’s EcoSure Solution: Driving Women’s Financial Inclusion in Zimbabwe

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“Women need to be listened to. Technology is technology; it is the emotional appeal that will carry the day.” Godwin Mashiri, General Manager of Econet EcoSure, shares the importance of financial inclusion for women in Zimbabwe and the influential role they play.

From Benin to Zimbabwe – Reflections on Connected Women’s Capacity Building engagement

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Building capacity with regulators and policymakers has been at the forefront of the GSMA Connected Women’s team efforts to reduce the gender gap in mobile internet and mobile money services in low- and middle-income countries. Our course on ‘Bridging the Mobile Gender Gap’ ...

Mobile money: A product of choice for women to send and receive remittances

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Earlier this year, I had the privilege to participate in an International Experts Roundtable in Rome on the topic of “Women’s financial inclusion and the role of remittances”. This roundtable marked the occasion of the United Nations International Day of Family Remittances ...

The promise of mobile money for further advancing women’s financial inclusion

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The findings of this blog are based on Findex 2017 microdata released in October 2018. In this blog, we discuss the role of mobile money in driving financial inclusion, particularly for women. Mobile money has the potential to close the gender gap in account ownership Since ...

The Conectadas Project: an innovative approach to deliver the Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit, empower women in Guatemala and increase MNO’s data revenues

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As part of the GSMA’s Connected Women Commitment Initiative, Tigo Guatemala committed to design strategies aiming to increase the proportion of women in their mobile internet customer base in Guatemala from 46% to 50% by 2020. To reach this goal, Tigo partnered with SHEVA, a ...

“Affordability”: How mobile operators can improve the affordability of their services for women to help close the mobile gender gap

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This is one of a series of blogs that deep dives into our framework to help mobile operators close the gender gap in their customer base. This blog focuses on one of the five themes that we believe mobile operators should focus on to address the most common barriers ...

The mobile gender gap in Asia: A region of rapid but unequal growth

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The GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2019 highlighted that there is a persistent mobile gender gap in low- and middle-income countries, where women are 10% less likely than men to own a mobile and 23% less likely to use mobile internet. The scale of the mobile gender gap ...

It doesn’t need to be complicated – When simple tariff plans and affordable pricing for women works

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Within three months of launching Offre Femme in August 2018, Orange Money Côte d’Ivoire had grown their base of female users of the service by a remarkable 84%. Women’s average revenue or spend also grew by 20%. What did Orange Money get so right to have such an impact?

Realising the full benefit of mobile for women in Africa

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The GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2019 highlighted that there is a persistent mobile gender gap in low- and middle-income countries, where women are 10% less likely than men to own a mobile and 23% less likely to use mobile internet. The mobile gender gap varies by region ...

Accelerating digital inclusion for women in Kenya

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“There is little value in selling a phone that does not have access to the internet because real transformation of women’s lives comes from having access to and using the internet.” – Charles Kare Wanjohi, Director of the Consumer Business Unit at Safaricom Women in ...

Harnessing the power of agents to drive female inclusion

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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 era of pink mobile phones is over: How Dialog Sri Lanka is making mobile internet relevant for women

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Mobile services and applications are sometimes criticised for focusing on men’s priorities and paying too little attention to women’s needs; for example, safe access to public internet facilities, private access to information on reproductive health, and protection from ...

“Accessibility”: How mobile operators can improve the accessibility of their services for women to help close the mobile gender gap

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This is one of a series of blogs that deep dives into our framework to help mobile operators close the gender gap in their customer base. This blog focuses on one of the five themes that we believe mobile operators should focus on to address the most common barriers ...

Do Mobile Connections Improve Women’s Lives?

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As International Women’s Day approaches this Friday, a new research study by GSMA, which represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, and Gallup, reveals that bridging the mobile and internet gender gap may help boost women’s wellbeing across the developing world. ...