Maura O’Neill, Chief Innovation Officer, USAID, writes on the USAID Impact blog about the announcement of the GSMA mWomen Global Development Alliance on November 30, 2011. The partnership, between the USAID, AusAID, the GSMA and Visa Inc, will enable women to effectively use mobile phones to access life-enhancing information, networks and services – such as banking, education and healthcare.

Maura writes:

In the late 1970s one of the major findings on Madison Avenue, (then the world capital of advertising) was that women control over 80% of all consumer purchases in the U.S. This ‘shocking discovery’ changed who and how companies marketed their products. I was just entering the workforce then and thought, ‘ how in the world could this have been such a surprise?’ Had none of them been to a grocery or department store? Had none of them recognized that the one car family was becoming two and it was women doing the schlepping?

It is happening again. Only this time the stakes are much higher. Cell phones have flown off the shelves and into the hands of people in the remotest and some of the poorest places on earth. They are transforming the developing world and bringing incredible opportunities…

Read the rest of Maura’s post here and learn more about the GSMA mWomen Global Development Alliance here.