Mobile 360 – Africa was a three day event that ran from Tuesday, 26 to 28 July 2016 at the Julius Nyerere international convention Centre in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Connected Women team had its first session entitled “Accelerating digital and financial inclusion for Women” on the opening day.
While mobile growth is spreading rapidly, it’s not spreading equally. Our research published in 2015 estimates that women in Africa are on average 13 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone than a man, which translates into 27 million fewer women than men owning mobile phones in Africa. This varies from country to country – in Niger women are 45 per cent less likely to own a phone, while in the DRC this number is 33 per cent.
Sadly, even when women own a mobile phone, there is still a greater difference in usage of services such as mobile internet and mobile money services. While women in low- and middle-income countries are 14 per cent less likely to own a phone than a man, according to the global Findex 2014 they are 36 per cent less likely to have used mobile money in the last 12 months. Closing the gender gap in Africa can provide substantial benefits for women, the mobile industry and broader economy and unlock an estimated USD 20 billion market opportunity for the mobile industry in the period 2015-2020.
The truth is that the gender gap is not going to close on its own. It requires collective action by all stakeholders and it is for this reason that we launched the Connected Women Commitment Initiative in February 2016 at Mobile World Congress. This initiative calls on mobile operators to make a formal commitment to reduce the gender gap in mobile money and mobile internet in their customer base by 2020.
During Mobile 360 – Africa we announced a further nine signatories to the Connected Women Commitment Initiative, which focuses on reducing the gender gap in mobile internet and mobile money services. Orange Mali, Smart Burundi, Smart Tanzania, Smart Uganda, Tigo Chad, Tigo Ghana, Tigo Senegal, Tigo Tanzania and Zantel join with other GSMA operator members in committing to connect millions more women in low- and middle-income countries by 2020. Collectively, these operators represent more than 85 million mobile internet and mobile money customers.
Accelerate digital and financial inclusion for women – panel discussion
The announcement of the new Connected Women Commitments was followed by a panel discussion to understand why they chose to make this bold commitment and what needs to be done to accelerate digital and financial inclusion for women.
It was clear from the remarks that women are an important part of society who can’t be left behind. Panellists spoke of the missed opportunity that exists when they are left behind and the social and economic benefits provided by ensuring gender inclusion. They emphasised that it was one that not only delivers commercial benefits for operators and allows them to grow their customer base but also transforms the lives of women.
Dr Omobola Johnson, Chair, Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) made the point that there are many reasons why the gender gap exists including issues such as income inequality and the fact that women can be less comfortable using technology. Panellists highlighted that key barriers included affordability, particularly of smartphones, as well as cultural, digital literacy and safety issues. They highlighted the importance of developing products that meet the needs of women and ensuring that these address the barriers that prevent women from accessing mobile services.
Papa Sow, General Manager, Tigo Chad, emphasised the value of talking to women and identifying their needs. Many women in Chad do group savings so they developed a product with Tigo Cash for these savings groups. He also mentioned that initially Tigo Chad started with complicated applications. Papa Sow’s advice is to listen to customers and what they want and design simple solutions. Tigo Chad initially tried to develop sophisticated applications but realised it was more important to focus on determine customer needs and create easily accessible content that meets these needs.
Alban Luherne the Orange Money Director, Orange AMEA, made the point that there is a need to analyse and segment mobile money usage and to encourage usage of more sophisticated services among women. They looked at their data and realised that there was a gender gap and now try and have specific programs and products for women.
Anurag Tandon the Commercial Director of Smart Tanzania, Smart East Africa, agreed that mobile financial services were leaving a lot of women behind, especially in rural areas. They have taken learnings from operations in Afghanistan and are replicating these in African markets. He argued that mobile financial services will play a much more important role in the day to day life of women in the future and that data will become the primary service.
Mobile safety and harassment: Removing barriers for women users – panel discussion
Our ‘Bridging the gender gap’ study in 2015 highlighted that safety and harassment is the third most important barrier to mobile access and use and therefore one that needs to be addressed.
According to Ingrid Brudvig, Women’s Rights Research and Advocacy Coordinator, World Wide Web Foundation, research has shown that women are subject to more abuse and bullying language than men. She highlighted that this is a significant barrier which curtails women’s freedom to associate online and express themselves and that the high levels of harassment leads women to self-censor or withdraw from technology. She argued that it was important to address this barrier at a policy level through legislation, the policies of online service providers, training and the judiciary on how to handle ICT harassment.
Sara Chamberlin, Digital director, BBC Media Action India made the point that there are real safety concerns for women who can face harassment on mobile phones as well as cultural barriers to women owning phones. She gave examples of community health workers who would rather use a feature phone than a smart phone due to issues around theft as well as women being prevented from owning a phone due to security concerns.
The panellists believe that to address this issue we must focus on preventing it and how to respond if harassment occurs. We should also not forget cultural barriers that deny women their human rights to owning a mobile phone
Throughout this session a clear message emerged. Reducing the gender gap in mobile phone ownership and use of services such as mobile money and mobile internet is critically important and bridging this gap meets both commercial and CSR objectives. We look forward to working with our new Commitment partners to realise this opportunity.
In conclusion, it’s increasingly important that we not only know about the barriers to mobile phone access and use but deliberately deliver solutions to each of the barriers to help bridge this gap. Mobile phone operators, regulators and governments can work together to deliver some of the solutions such as those around security and harassment.