Building resilience through mobile-enabled solutions: Lessons for innovators
Tuesday 27 April, 2021 | blog | Blog | Disaster response | English | Global | Innovation Fund | Innovation fund and grants | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Preparedness | Refugees and forced migrants
Mobile networks and the connectivity they provide can be a lifeline for those affected by sudden-onset disasters and protracted humanitarian crises. Be it access to critical information, the ability to communicate with family and friends, or through the provision of ...
COVID-19 and digital humanitarian action: Virtual vs in-person training
Tuesday 13 April, 2021 | Blog | blog | COVID-19 | El Salvador | English | Guatemala | Honduras | Innovation Fund | Latin America & the Caribbean | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Refugees and forced migrants
This blog post is the final in a series exploring COVID-19 and its impact on digital humanitarian action. More findings related to current trends, risks and the path forward can be found in our report. Since August 2019, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been a ...
COVID-19 and digital humanitarian action: Mobile money enabled cash assistance and the role of the agent network
Thursday 25 March, 2021 | Blog | blog | COVID-19 | English | Global | Global | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Refugees and forced migrants
This blog is part of a series exploring COVID-19 and its impact on digital humanitarian action. More findings related to current trends, risks and the path forward can be found in our report. In a world where minimising human contact where possible is at the forefront ...
Providing meaningful feedback to research participants with visual and hearing impairments
Monday 22 March, 2021 | Assistive Tech | Blog | blog | Kenya | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation
In February and March 2020, the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H) team worked with partners, including UNHCR, Safaricom and Butterfly Works, in Nairobi to better understand how both Kenyans and refugees with visual and hearing impairments use their mobile phones. ...
The shift to mobile technology for amplified government and humanitarian cash and voucher assistance amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya
Thursday 18 March, 2021 | Africa | blog | Blog | COVID-19 | English | Kenya | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation
This blog is part of a series exploring COVID-19 and its impact on digital humanitarian action. More findings related to current trends, risks and the path forward can be found in our report. On 5th January 2020, the World Health Organization identified the first case of the ...
COVID-19 and digital humanitarian action: Trust and the uptake of information
Thursday 11 March, 2021 | Blog | blog | COVID-19 | Global | Global | Innovation Fund | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Refugees and forced migrants
In a pandemic, almost nothing is as important as timely, trustworthy and actionable information. In responding to COVID-19, many humanitarian organisations realised the importance of these factors quickly and have used mobile channels to deliver vital information to the ...
COVID-19 and the future of digital humanitarian action: Advice from the experts
Wednesday 3 March, 2021 | blog | Blog | COVID-19 | English | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation
Last week we were lucky to have three exceptional panellists bring to life some of the key lessons from our respective COVID-19 reports from ODI Humanitarian Policy Group and the GSMA focusing on the impact of the pandemic on the future of digital humanitarianism.
Five mobile technology trends in the humanitarian sector
Thursday 25 February, 2021 | Blog | blog | COVID-19 | English | Global | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Refugees and forced migrants
In the 2020 M4H Annual Report, we take stock of prevailing trends related to the role of mobile technology in the humanitarian sector and how they are shaping humanitarian action. Trend 1: The pandemic has accelerated the need for inclusive digital humanitarian assistance ...
COVID-19 and digital humanitarian action: Three early lessons
Monday 22 February, 2021 | Blog | blog | COVID-19 | English | Global | Global | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation
This blog is part of a series exploring COVID-19 and its impact on digital humanitarian action. More findings related to current trends, risks and the path forward can be found in our report launched today. In humanitarian contexts, COVID-19 has had a particularly severe ...
Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation: Our impact in 2020
Thursday 18 February, 2021 | Blog | blog | COVID-19 | English | Global | Innovation fund and grants | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Partnership engagement | Policy and regulation | Preparedness | Refugees and forced migrants
We publish the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H) programme’s annual report today, as we near the one year mark of COVID-19 gripping the globe. The pandemic has impacted lives heavily, and has increased those needing humanitarian assistance and protection by ...
Behind the Mobile Stories / Historias Móviles project
Monday 15 February, 2021 | Blog | blog | Colombia | English | Latin America & the Caribbean | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Refugees and forced migrants
In March 2020, the GSMA and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) asked Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Barranquilla, Colombia, to tell us about the importance of mobile connectivity in their lives. They shared their own stories using the medium of their choice, with control ...
User Journeys in Burundi: A conversation with Ground Truth Solutions
Thursday 11 February, 2021 | Blog | blog | Burundi | English | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Sub-Saharan Africa
In 2019, the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H) team worked with Ground Truth Solutions in Burundi to understand users’ experience of receiving cash assistance through mobile money. The work used human-centred design (HCD) methodologies to empathise with users and ...
Humanitarian Adaptation: M4H Innovation Fund grantees’ responses to COVID-19
Wednesday 27 January, 2021 | Blog | blog | COVID-19 | English | Global | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation
In the past year, COVID-19 has impacted the daily lives of billions of people, while also exacerbating the inequalities faced by marginalised populations. Already isolated communities, such as those experiencing gender-based violence, have experienced higher levels of risk. ...
CoNUA: Robust data enabling development of appropriate and equitable mobile-enabled humanitarian interventions
Monday 18 January, 2021 | blog | Blog | English | Global | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation
The second iteration of the CoNUA Toolkit, plus overview document and Toolkit guidance can be found at www.gsma.com/CoNUA. Since the first version was published, the Toolkit has been piloted, tested and deployed in a number of humanitarian settings by a number of different ...
The Voice ID Project: Verifying recipients of mobile money supported humanitarian cash transfers in Somaliland
Thursday 14 January, 2021 | Blog | blog | English | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Refugees and forced migrants | Somaliland
A common requirement in humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) is recipient verification at the household level. Verification serves two purposes. First, it ensures that the intended recipient of the cash is the right one, and second, it provides an audit trail for ...
Defining our strategic partnerships
Thursday 7 January, 2021 | Blog | blog | English | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Sub-Saharan Africa
In 2019, I travelled to Uganda to visit refugee camps in the northern part of the country to get a first-hand experience understanding how mobile technology could help these displaced communities improve their lives. There I met Joseph (not his real name). Joseph is in his ...
Enhancing the user experience of mobile-money enabled cash recipients: Spotlight on Burundi
Monday 7 December, 2020 | Blog | blog | Burundi | English | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Mobile Money | Refugees and forced migrants | Sub-Saharan Africa
Mobile money-enabled cash and voucher assistance (CVA) has the potential to offer transformational benefits to cash recipients, including digital and financial inclusion. With the rapid increase in digital delivery of CVA (in part due to COVID-19), and tightening of aid ...
Digital Literacy Training Guide: For mobile money agents and digital literacy change agents
Tuesday 3 November, 2020 | blog | Blog | Digital literacy | English | Global | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Mobile Money | Resource | Uganda
Uganda hosts the sixth largest refugee population in the world, with over 1.4 million refugees from South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Eritrea, and Rwanda among other countries. The majority of refugee households are female-headed. Because of the ...
5 Tips for Inclusivity in Human-Centred Design
Tuesday 29 September, 2020 | Africa | blog | Blog | English | Global | Kenya | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Refugees and forced migrants | Sub-Saharan Africa
Human-centred design has become something of a buzzword in the humanitarian sector. But what does it actually mean? In the simplest terms, human centred design is a practical and iterative methodology for problem solving. It draws upon lived experiences, recognising that ...
Pandemic response in action: Cassava Fintech responses to COVID-19 in Burundi
Thursday 10 September, 2020 | Africa | blog | Blog | Burundi | COVID-19 | Disaster response | English | Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation | Sub-Saharan Africa
This is the fifth post in a blog series highlighting the efforts that mobile network operators have taken to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in their respective markets. In this interview Cassava Fintech-Burundi’s General Manager, Wood Gitobu, explains how COVID-19 has ...