Improving women’s digital and financial literacy can greatly enhance their economic empowerment. The collaborative efforts of the GSMA and World Food Programme (WFP) in Somalia demonstrate how integrating mobile technology with digital literacy training can significantly enhance the effectiveness of humanitarian initiatives, thereby maximising benefits for the intended recipients.
With Somalia facing multiple challenges like conflict, droughts, food shortages, and displacement, the need for these empowerment efforts is clear. According to the 2024 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Somalia Humanitarian Response Plan, over 6.9 million people require humanitarian assistance, with 4 million facing urgent needs due to acute vulnerabilities.
Traditional literacy rates in Somalia hover around 40% with a slightly lower figure for women than men. This is according to the UNFPA Gender Equity Report, Volume 8. Additionally, low levels of digital and financial literacy among women in Somalia pose significant barriers to their economic empowerment and resilience. Limited digital literacy skills, often exacerbated by age, can hinder local women’s capacity to accurately verify phone numbers when conducting financial transactions, resulting in funds being sent to incorrect recipients. This challenge is particularly pronounced among women who lack personal mobile phones but possess SIM cards, leading them to rely on borrowing phones from others to access their mobile accounts.
These challenges can lead to an increase in behaviours that inadvertently risk unauthorised access and theft of funds, such as sharing PIN numbers with shopkeepers during transactions.
There are also cases of power imbalance at the household level where men make decisions on behalf of women on how to use their money, exacerbating gender disparity.
In response to these challenges, organisations have focused research efforts on enhancing digital literacy in Somalia, including the WFP in collaboration with Ground Truth Solutions and USIU lecturers – Dr Fatuma Ahmed Ali and Dr Shukria Dini. Their study on Gender Analysis of Digital Financial Inclusion and Women’s Economic Empowerment revealed the need for customised literacy programmes tailored to the diverse needs of women across geographical regions.
The Government of Somalia, working with the WFP, is implementing the shock-responsive Safety Net for Human Capital Project (SNHCP), known as Baxnaano locally. This project provides cash assistance via mobile money to support vulnerable households. Recognising the challenge of low literacy levels, especially among women, and the importance of digital literacy for accessing digital financial services, WFP in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour & Social Affairs, partnered with the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation Programme (M4H) in 2023. This collaboration aimed to enhance digital financial inclusion and women’s economic empowerment through the mobile-based safety net.
The GSMA galvanised the support of mobile network operators (MNOs) to improve access to mobile services in humanitarian contexts. Leveraging the Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit (MISTT), 21 WFP cooperating partners underwent a Train-the-Trainer (ToT) approach to enhance digital literacy skills, with a focus on mobile money.
The lead trainers then provided the community mobilisers with the same training who in turn trained over 300,000 women across Somalia in two rounds of SNHCP digital literacy training. The project resulted in significant improvements in digital literacy and SIM ownership among women, with many becoming independent in managing their mobile money accounts.
Post training reviews and strategy sessions with the GSMA identified gaps which facilitated the refinement of the training materials. Using these revised materials, the training expanded to MNO staff, which enabled them to provide supplementary support to the women alongside village mobilisers who acted as digital financial inclusion champions.
In addition to the digital literacy ToT, MNO staff were also trained on “Do No Harm” principles. Hormuud and Telesom Telecom in Somalia and Somaliland played critical roles in supporting recipients, ensuring transaction efficiency and building consumer confidence at the community level.
Mercy Mwikali, WFP
“Based on the feedback that we have received since the trainings, women have gained confidence in using mobile money independently. They now rely less on assistance and can identify and avoid scammers. Some have even changed their PIN numbers for added security. Additionally, women are discovering new ways to use mobile money, such as saving and paying bills for school fees and purchases”
The collaborative efforts of the GSMA and WFP in Somalia showcase how the adoption of mobile technology coupled with digital literacy training can dramatically increase the efficacy of humanitarian programming and maximise the benefits for the target population. Further efforts are needed to fully explore the use of interactive voice response systems to improve illiterate individuals’ digital skills to protect themselves from mobile scams and fraud.
