As part of the GSMA’s Connected Women Commitment Initiative, Airtel-Tigo Rwanda has committed to increase the proportion of women in their mobile money customer base in Rwanda from 39 per cent to 45 per cent by 2020.

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BRIDGING THE MOBILE MONEY GENDER GAP IN RWANDA

“When Tigo Rwanda signed the Connected Women Commitment Initiative early last year it was because we believed that increasing the number of women using Mobile Financial Services would in turn allow them to improve their quality of life, that of their families and that of their communities. As part of our GSMA commitments, on 8, March we launched the $65,000 Tigo Women Entrepreneurship Fund. This Fund, which aims to provide startup capital to more than 300 women from across the country to open mobile money businesses, is linked to two key principles – outreach and sustainability. We see these principles as critical to developing sound financial inclusion capable of serving rural communities and enabling women to improve their economic activities and livelihoods”.

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Airtel-Tigo Rwanda is committed to increasing the number of women using mobile financial services from 39 per cent of total users to 45 per cent by 2020. Women take on a significant amount of responsibility for their families’ financial management, including, emergency payments, remittances and daily domestic management; in fact women direct up to 90 per cent of their income to their families and communities. Increasing women access to mobile financial services will in turn allow them to improve their quality of life, that of their families’ and that of their communities. Airtel-Tigo Rwanda’s target is to deliver financial inclusion across the country and we cannot achieve this without women.

Read our blog post on how Airtel-Tigo Rwanda is empowering women agents.

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EMPOWERING WOMEN AGENTS

Research has highlighted that lack of trust in digital financial services was because of the level of customer service the women were getting from male agents. The Tigo Women Entrepreneurship fund was set up to recruit, train and offer initial funding to women so that they could become Tigo Cash agents. To date, Airtel-Tigo Rwanda has empowered over 70 women as Tigo cash agents and the impact on the women’s lives and businesses is beginning to show. Airtel-Tigo Rwanda targets to have more than 1,200 women as agents within 2017.