GSMA Mobile for Development

Mitigating Women’s Safety Concerns with Mobile: A Case Study of Vodafone India Sakhi

In October 2018, Vodafone Idea Ltd launched Sakhi, a service to address key barriers women face to accessing and using mobile in India, as well as women’s concerns about personal safety.

10 Lessons Learnt: Closing the Gender Gap in Internet Access and Use

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In this report, you will find 10 key lessons to consider when implementing projects that aim to increase women’s access to and use of the internet.

The Mobile Gender Gap: Asia

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South Asia has the widest mobile gender gap of any region. Addressing this is important in order to deliver the significant benefits of mobile and the internet to women, their families, communities and the economy.

The Mobile Gender Gap: Africa

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Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the widest mobile gender gaps of any region. Addressing these gender gaps in Africa is important in order to deliver the significant benefits of mobile and the internet to women, their families, communities and the economy.

Webinar on Demand: Understanding the Mobile Gender Gap in 2019

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In LMICs, women are still 10% less likely than men to own a mobile phone and 23% less likely to use mobile internet. The GSMA's Connected Women team hosted a webinar to share the key findings and recommendations from their recent Mobile Gender Gap Report.

Tigo Rwanda: Empowering women agents

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Tigo Rwanda signed the GSMA Connected Women Commitment Initiative in which they committed to increase the proportion of women in their mobile money customer base. Research has highlighted that lack of trust in digital financial ...

Orange Cote d’Ivoire: Accelerating financial inclusion for women

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In 2017, Orange Cote d’Ivoire committed to reducing the gender gap in their mobile money customer base by 2020. We met some of their female customers to understand how mobile money changed their lives.

CEO of Telenor Pakistan discusses the importance of digital and financial inclusion for women

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Irfan Khan, CEO of Telenor Pakistan, spoke to the GSMA’s Connected Women team at MWC Barcelona 2019 about why digital and financial inclusion for women is an important issue for him and his organisation. He discusses what he views to ...

CEO of MTN Ghana discusses the importance of financial inclusion for women

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Selorm Adadevoh, CEO of MTN Ghana, spoke to the GSMA’s Connected Women team at MWC Barcelona 2019 about why financial inclusion for women is an important issue for him and his organisation. He discusses what he views to be the primary ...

MWC Barcelona 2019: Connected Women Seminar Recording

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Did you attend the Connected Women programme's seminar at MWC Barcelona 2019? The full seminar recording is now available to watch online. Catch up on what you missed or recap on the important discussions here.

CEO of Wave Money discusses the importance of financial inclusion for women

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Brad Jones, CEO of Wave Money, spoke to the GSMA’s Connected Women team about why financial inclusion for women is an important issue for him and his organisation. He discusses what he views to be the primary challenge to closing the ...

CMO of Telenor Pakistan explains why Telenor is committed to closing the mobile gender gap

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The GSMA’s Connected Women programme is very pleased to work with Telenor Pakistan in addressing the mobile gender gap in their customer base. Here we speak to Bilal Kazmi, Chief Marketing Officer of Telenor Pakistan, who explains why ...

Global CIO of Bharti Airtel addresses the importance of digital inclusion for women

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Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO and Head of Digital for Bharti Airtel explains why connecting the world is so important and why she values being part of the GSMA’s Connected Women initiative.

Safaricom: Driving Digital Inclusion for Women in Kenya

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Charles Kare Wanjohi, Consumer Business Unit Director at Safaricom, explains the importance of digital inclusion for women in Kenya and shares insights into what he believes is the key to closing the mobile gender gap. You can also ...

How MoMo Pay Empowers Female Merchants and Customers in Ghana

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In Ghana there is a gender gap in mobile money adoption and use which means that fewer women than men benefit from this potentially life-enhancing service. In order to help close this gender gap, MTN Ghana, one of the major mobile ...

Vodafone Sakhi: Voices of Impact from India

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Mobile has the power to make women feel safer. In 2018, Vodafone Idea launched ‘Sakhi’ across India, an exclusive safety service for women, focused on giving them the confidence to live life fearlessly. Vodafone Sakhi’s features ...

The Executive Director of UN Women explains the importance of connecting women

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Wednesday 27 Feb 2019 | Accelerating Digital and Financial Inclusion | Connected Women | Video |

The Mobile Gender Gap Report 2019

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This report reveals how the mobile gender gap is changing in low- and middle-income countries, ranks the factors preventing equal mobile ownership and mobile internet use, and outlines the opportunities that closing the mobile gender gap represents.

Mobile Gender Gap Report 2019 Methodology

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This document describes the analysis and modelling undertaken for The Mobile Gender Gap Report 2019 as well as highlighting key areas of methodological change year-on-year.

Digital Equity Policy Brief W20 Japan 2019

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Thursday 14 Feb 2019 | Accelerating Digital and Financial Inclusion | Connected Women |

The W20, under the Japanese Presidency, presents this policy brief to outline some of the challenges for women’s access and meaningful use of digital technologies, and to provide guidance for coordinated and effective action by the G20.

Transforming Women’s Lives with Mobile: UNGA Panel

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‘Transforming Women's Lives with Mobile': A Panel Discussion Hosted by the GSMA at UNGA 2018. A conversation with Yasmina McCarty, GSMA; Elisabeth Biering, Telenor; Sanda Ojiambo, Safaricom; and Anna Falth, UN Women, highlighting ...

The GSMA’s Gender Analysis and Identification Toolkit (GAIT)

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The GSMA's Gender Analysis and Identification Toolkit (GAIT) addresses an issue many mobile operators face: the absence of reliable gender-disaggregated data on mobile ownership and usage. This information gap is an important one to ...

Triggering mobile internet use in Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania

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Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest level of mobile broadband coverage in the world; only 63% of the region’s population lived within reach of a 3G network at the end of 2017. It also has the lowest level of mobile internet penetration ...

A toolkit for researching women’s internet access and use

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While an increasing number of people are now using the internet, the lack of comparable and accurate gender disaggregated data obscures the true extent of the differences in access to, and use of the internet between men and women. ...

A framework to understand women’s mobile-related safety concerns in low-and middle-income countries

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There is a paradoxical relationship between mobile technology and women’s safety; while access to a mobile can make a woman feel safer, mobiles can also be a conduit for threats and these can act as a barrier to access and usage. Based ...

The Mobile Gender Gap Report 2018

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The Mobile Gender Gap Report 2018 reveals for the first time the magnitude of the gender gap in mobile internet use across low- and middle-income countries, as well as highlighting the persistent gender disparity in mobile ownership ...

Triggering mobile internet use among men and women in South Asia

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Adoption and use of mobile internet is far from universal or equitable, with women, those with less education, rural residents, and the poor accounting for a disproportionate number of non-users. This GSMA Connected Women and GSMA ...

Mapping the mobile money gender gap: insights from Cote d’Ivoire and Mali

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Despite significant growth in mobile money over the last decade, there are still wide gender gaps in mobile money account ownership and usage. There is valuable data on the gender gap in mobile financial services, but to better target ...

Accelerating affordable smartphone ownership in emerging markets

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This is a research study into the smartphone ecosystem landscape and business models that drive affordable smartphone access. It is directed at actors interested in enhancing consumers’ smartphone ownership in emerging markets. ...

Using your data to drive growth in women’s use of mobile money services

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Mobile financial services have proven to be a game changer for financial inclusion. However, women are consistently less likely than men to access these services. This is a loss to women, many of whom have yet to reap the benefits of ...

Mobile phones, internet, and gender in Myanmar

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This report on Myanmar explores the reasons for the gender gap in mobile ownership and low internet use, and recommends actions for stakeholders to overcome these barriers. It is the outcome of a research collaboration between GSMA ...

Women and Mobile Money – Insights from Kenya

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Mobile money is widely cited as the game-changer for financial inclusion and the growth driver for the African mobile industry. However, recent studies have shown that across Africa women are consistently less likely than men to use ...

Swadhaar, Accion, and Airtel Money: Mobile money for female customers in India

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In January 2013, Swadhaar, a microfinance institution in India, and Accion, an international NGO, launched a mobile money pilot in partnership with Airtel Money and Axis Bank. The pilot aimed to enable Swadhaar’s loan customers to ...

Orange Mali: Reaching women customers with mobile savings and insurance

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In relatively mature mobile money markets, introducing new products could be a valuable way to build customer loyalty while also bringing new customers on board. In Mali, where mobile money customers tend to use their mobile money ...

HNI Madagascar: Information via mobile to tackle gender-based violence

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3-2-1 is a free, on-demand voice and text-based information service that has attracted over 3 million Airtel Madagascar subscribers since it launched in March 2010. The 3-2-1 Service is provided by HNI, an international NGO, and ...

Uninor: Project Sampark

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In India a woman is 36% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man, which suggests that women are still an untapped market and represent a major opportunity for mobile operators to increase their customer base and revenue. Telenor ...

BRAC Bangladesh: Partnering for mEducation

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This case study tells the story of NGO BRAC Bangladesh partnering with operator Robi Axiata and the British Council to develop and launch an mEducation value-added service (VAS) for adolescent girls. Developed with the support of a ...

Airtel Uganda: A Mobile Money Solution for Savings Groups

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“Airtel Weza” is an innovative mobile money solution for savings groups. This case study outlines how Airtel Uganda partnered with Grameen Foundation to design and launch the product. It also provides useful lessons and recommendations ...

Grameen Foundation: Bringing “Mobile Midwife” to Nigeria

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Grameen Foundation replicated its “Mobile Midwife” service from Ghana to Nigeria in order to address the high maternal and child mortality rates there. “Mobile Midwife” delivers medically sound, stage-based health information to ...

Accelerating Digital Literacy: Empowering women to use the mobile internet

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In developing countries, the number of unique subscribers using mobile internet grew from 728 million in 2010 to 1.8 billion in 2014 (source: GSMA Intelligence Q4 2014). Mobile internet access can have profound implications for women’s ...

M4D Impact Service Evaluation: Human Network International 3-2-1

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This report is the result of an evaluation conducted by GSMA M4D Impact, of Connected Women grantee HNI’s 3-2-1 service in Madagascar that offers public service information via Airtel 3-2-1 on a range of topics including health, ...

Weena: Moov’s Value Proposition for the Women of Togo

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Weena is Moov Togo’s mobile offering tailored to resource-poor women in Togo. The Weena offering includes a tailored tariff plan and a loyalty scheme that benefit not only individual women, but also the community as a whole. Indeed, ...

A Mobile Business School: Tigo Tanzania and EduMe

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When consumer insights research revealed that Tanzanian women wanted to improve their business skills, Tigo Tanzania responded by launching a mobile business school which provides a step-by-step guide on how to start and run a ...

Snapshot: SEWA RUDI – A customer-centric approach to designing mobile services for women

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This snapshot explains the importance of involving women at the design stage when developing mobile services for women, and shares lessons from SEWA’s journey of developing RUDI Sandesha Vyavhaar (RSV), or the RUDI Information Service, ...

Snapshot: Swadhaar, Accion & Airtel Money – Mobile money training for female customers in India

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Customer marketing and education are always important to driving the adoption of mobile money, but they are absolutely crucial for female customers, who generally take more time than men to trust and start using mobile money services. ...

Snapshot: HNI & Airtel – Creating relevant gender content with local partners in Madagascar

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Sourcing local relevant content can be difficult enough for mobile operators when developing a new service. Creating such content and intending it to lead to behaviour change, especially on the topic of gender rights, is even more ...

Mobile Technical Literacy Toolkit

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Mobile Technical Literacy – the ability to use a mobile phone and its non-voice and core functions – has been identified as a barrier to women’s awareness and usage of mobile services across low- and middle-income countries. What has ...

Bridging the gender gap: Mobile access and usage in low- and middle-income countries

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This report examines how many women in low- and middle-income countries own mobile phones, how intensively they use them, and the barriers to mobile phone adoption and use compared to men, providing actionable insights and ...

Accelerating the digital economy: Gender diversity in the telecommunications sector

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Despite progress in women’s representation in the telecommunications industry, a gender gap persists, which is particularly noticeable at the leadership level. This global report provides a snapshot of the current state of gender ...

Sylvie: A Tigo Cash Agent in Rwanda

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Tigo’s Cash service facilitates micro-transactions that are safe, fast, and affordable. It also transforms the lives of its many agents, enabling them to progress their careers and contribute to their families. Here, we speak to ...

Savings Groups: A rural sales channel for mobile money in Africa?

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In their 2015 Annual Letter, Bill and Melinda Gates made the following statement: “Mobile banking will help the poor transform their lives”. We at GSMA ...

Striving and Surviving in Papua New Guinea: Exploring the Lives of Women at the Base of the Pyramid

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The mobile industry – and indeed much of the world – knows little about the lives, struggles and aspirations of women in Papua New Guinea (PNG), particularly those living at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP). What are their greatest ...

Snapshot: Maymay in Myanmar. How and why Ooredoo are targeting Myanmar women

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Growing mobile data penetration among low-income populations is a challenge for mobile operators (MNOs) across the developing world. However, the poor access to basic services within this segment presents a clear opportunity for ...

Reaching half of the market: Women and mobile money

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This publication addresses barriers that prevent women from accessing and using mobile money, and highlights some of the key tactics that mobile money providers can use to increase penetration amongst women. This is the first ...

Snapshot: Consumer Insights for Adolescent Girls – the case of BRAC in Bangladesh

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Rural adolescent girls are an untapped market for mobile operators in countries like Bangladesh. However, creating a mobile service for them is challenging, as they are often a market segment that is difficult to reach due to existing ...

Snapshot: Grameen Foundation’s “Mobile Midwife” Service in Nigeria – How to generate and use consumer insights to localise mHealth content

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Once a life-enhancing value-added service has reached scale in a market, the next step is to replicate it in other geographies. Grameen Foundation did this when they took their maternal and child health information service from Ghana ...

mWomen Innovation Fund Grants

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The mWomen programme has awarded 11 Innovation Grants to operators and NGOs. The grants provide seed funding for the design and launch of economically sustainable products and services which increase women's access to and ...

Women in Agriculture: a Toolkit for Mobile Services Practitioners

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The ‘Women in Agriculture: a Toolkit for Mobile Services Practitioners', created in partnership with GSMA mWomen, is a resource for MNOs and members of the wider mobile ecosystem who are thinking to develop mobile ...

Partnerships Insights Paper

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For operators to take advantage of the revenue potential found in underserved communities in emerging markets, the formation of efficient and effective partnerships between operators and social sector organizations that have ...

Snapshot: MAMA in Bangladesh – Including men in mobile services for women

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In cultures where women's empowerment is a complex, challenging subject on both social and cultural levels, men can be the champions or detractors to any approach. MAMA tackles this issue by integrating men and other household members ...

Snapshot: Etisalat in Togo and Benin

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This document illustrates how mobile operators aim to reach rural women in emerging markets through innovative business models. This snapshot illustrates one such model, the "Weena" program, developed by Etisalat Group and launched by ...

Insights: Tigo in Tanzania – Qualitative Research as a Way to Gain In-depth Consumer Understanding of Base of the Pyramid Women

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This insights paper draws on Tigo Tanzania’s experience in using qualitative research to gain a deep understanding of the resource-poor women’s segment. It offers operators practical guidance on how to analyse existing customer data, ...

Case study: Dialog’s 5 Star Partner Programme – Integrating women into the rural retail chain

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Creating a rural network of trained female retailers can be an effective way for mobile operators to reach new rural women customers. This case study of Dialog's "5 Star Partner" programme in Sri Lanka reveals the social and commercial ...

Snapshot: Turkcell in Turkey – Engaging women micro-entrepreneurs

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Women entrepreneurs are economically active and technologically savvy. Turkcell is tapping into this segment by helping women to start and grow their businesses. The initiative helps promote the participation of women in the economy ...

Transforming Women’s Livelihoods Through Mobile Broadband: A study on the value of mobile broadband for working women in the developing world

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This report is based on research that was designed to uncover and characterize the various forms of value that mobile broadband provides to working women in the developing world and identify the barriers that block feature phone owners ...

SMS Peer Networking Service For Female Entrepreneurs

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Of the 2.5 million people in the West Bank, nearly a third are unemployed women. Women face particularly acute challenges in the entering the workforce due to a confluence of cultural norms, political instability, a stagnated economy ...

Mobile Birth Registration in Uganda

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In most countries around the world, proof of identity is an essential prerequisite for gaining access to basic services, including enrolling in basic education, health care services, or even claiming rights to inheritance or obtaining ...

Mrs Enay, Sukaresmi, West Java, Indonesia

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Mrs Enay runs a small grocery store. She explains the impact mobile has had on her life.

Mrs Cici, Gunung Salek, West Java, Indonesia

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Mrs Cici works as a wedding make-up artist in her village in Indonesia. She explains the impact mobile has had on her life.

GSMA mWomen Marketing Handbook

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The GSMA mWomen Marketing Handbook, created in partnership with Altai Consulting, is a resource for mobile network operators and other members of the mobile ecosystem to improve their approach to marketing to low-income women in ...

Unlocking the Potential: Women and Mobile Financial Services in Emerging Markets – Executive Summary

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Executive summary of February 2013 report, produced in partnership with Visa Inc, which offers insights on women’s needs for financial management tools and use of mobile financial services in Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, Papua New ...

Unlocking the Potential: Women and Mobile Financial Services in Emerging Markets

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This February 2013 report, produced in partnership with Visa Inc, offers insights on women’s needs for financial management tools and use of mobile financial services in Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Tanzania. It ...

Florence, Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya

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“The day my kid felt sick, the mobile phone gave me a chance. I just called the doctor direct and asked for the first aid I could perform to the baby. I found it made my work easier” Florence is one of the approximately one million ...

Rachel, from a remote rural community near Morogoro, Tanzania

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Lying outside Morogoro, close to the building of a vast new road, lies a small village. In its compass is a leper hospital. The nurses who offer administer palliative care to its patients are not well paid. In a scheme designed to ...

Sophia, Masai Village, Hell’s Gate National Park, Kenya

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In June 2012, Mobile for Development travelled to Kenya to meet the Masai Villagers of Hell’s Gate National Park near Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The Masai are pastoralists, farming sheep, chicken and cows and selling both primary and ...

Striving & Surviving: Exploring the Lives of Women at the Base of the Pyramid

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Full length research report surveying the wants, needs, aspirations and mobile uses of women living at the base of the pyramid (BoP), which are those living on under US$2 a day. Conducted in partnership with the Australian Agency for ...

GSMA mWomen Research Toolkit

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"This toolkit contains all research tools used to create ‘Striving and Surviving: Exploring the Lives of Base of the Pyramid Women’ These include: Ethnography Observation Guide Focus Group Discussion ...

Portraits: A Glimpse into the Lives of Base of the Pyramid Women

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This research report is the first to survey the wants, needs, aspirations and mobile uses of women living at the base of the pyramid (BoP), which are those living on under US$2 a day. Conducted in partnership with the Australian Agency ...

Striving & Surviving: Exploring the Lives of Women at the Base of the Pyramid

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Impact Pathway for Mobile & Women

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The Impact Pathway for Mobile and Women explores how women can be empowered through ownership and effective usage of mobile phones, and how access for women to life-enhancing mobile services can lead to economic advancement, and ...

Realising the mWomen Opportunity: A Framework for Designing the mWomen Business Case

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This framework is designed to help MNOs gather evidence that women are valuable mobile subscribers and highlight best practices and proposed approaches to targeting these women. Though regional and local contexts will factor heavily ...

Uninor: Empowering Women through an Innovative Distribution Model

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Evaluation of Uninor's innovative pilot program, Citizen Centre Enterprises (CCEs), which delivers business service through a network of women entrepreneurs in partnership with non governmental organisation Hand in Hand. The study ...

Vodafone Qatar’s Al Johara: empowerment through entrepreneurship

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Empowerment through entrepreneurship, this case study examines how Vodafone created a network of female sales agents who sell to other women whilst working within appropriate Qatari cultural norms.

Policy Recommendations to Address the Mobile Phone Gender Gap

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This paper summarises the GSMA mWomen recommendations for policymakers. Governments and policy makers have a critical role to play in empowering women through mobile technology and are a pivotal part of the ecosystem required for ...

Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity

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The report is the first global study of its kind. It endeavours to understand mobile usage by women subscribers in low and middle income countries and highlights the barriers facing women’s adoption of mobile technologies. It also ...