Mobile for Development Impact Report

Across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), mobile connectivity continues to transform the way people live, work and respond to change. New digital technologies, including AI, offer powerful opportunities to accelerate this transformation by lowering barriers to critical tools and services that drive social impact. From enabling access to essential services to supporting climate adaptation, inclusion and resilience, GSMA Mobile for Development (M4D) drives innovation in digital technology to reduce inequalities in our world. With the support of our donors, members and partners, and thanks to our unique position at the intersection of the tech and development ecosystems, we work relentlessly to address the priorities framed by the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and global climate action.

Since 2008, M4D has worked alongside mobile network operators (MNOs), innovators, governments and development agencies to design and scale digital-enabled solutions that improve lives and strengthen local economies. From 2023 to 2025 alone, M4D’s initiatives across more than 60 countries have reached more than 200 million people, connecting those traditionally excluded from the digital economy.

M4D identifies and champions digital innovations that advance sustainable development while fostering collaboration between the GSMA, mobile industry, tech innovators, governments and development partners. By reducing fragmentation and building shared understanding, we help align efforts to scale collective impact. Our work spans thought leadership, policy engagement and provision of targeted technical and strategic advisory to support the scale of impactful and inclusive solutions from digital players and innovators.

Over the past two years, we have continued to focus on understanding the state of digital inclusion, the barriers to mobile internet adoption and use and the opportunities to address them. We have provided critical data, insights, technical assistance and capacity building support to partners to accelerate digital inclusion for the underserved. Flagship reports such as the State of Mobile Internet Connectivity (SOMIC) and the Mobile Connectivity Index (MCI) remain definitive resources on connectivity trends and barriers. SOMIC analyses mobile internet adoption, barriers and trends, while MCI benchmarks 173 countries on infrastructure, affordability, consumer readiness and content. These insights have directly informed MNO strategies and national policy. For example, MCI data was incorporated in United Nations Capital Development Fund’s (UNCDF) Inclusive Digital Economy Scorecard, which informed digital assessments in 33 countries and 10 policy actions. In Malawi, sharing MCI findings on device affordability, taxation and skills informed government efforts in these areas, including the removal of import taxes on mobile devices in late 2024.

We have used this data to train more than 600 policymakers in 55 countries, supporting governments in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and India. We also provided inputs to international processes, including the G20, where we highlighted the importance of digital skills. In 2024, the final G20 Leaders’ Declaration explicitly recognised digital skills as essential for inclusion – a first for this global forum.

Since 2023, the GSMA has supported 19 partners, including 12 MNOs, to deliver digital skills training through the MISTT, a free multilingual toolkit that equips people to use mobile internet with confidence. MTN Uganda, for example, used tailored MISTT train-the-trainer sessions in 2024 to reach 11,000 customers (especially women and 2G users) across its Kampala stores, boosting low cost Kabode smartphone sales, data usage and staff confidence, with plans to scale nationwide. We have also driven support for handset affordability through our thought leadership, including reports on device costs like Making internet-enabled phones more affordable in low- and middle-income countries. To date, the GSMA has engaged more than 40 partners, drawing on these insights to provide practical guidance to address affordability barriers at scale. This culminated in the launch of the GSMA Handset Affordability Coalition, which includes more than 25 members from across Africa and Asia.

We are engaging with MNOs to support digital inclusion for persons with disabilities. 18 MNOs (including nine new signatories in 2025), have committed to the GSMA Principles for Driving the Digital Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, improving product accessibility, awareness campaigns and skills training. For instance, to overcome communication barriers for Deaf customers, Dialog Axiata in Sri Lanka integrated the real-time sign language app of GSMA Innovation Fund grantee DeafTawk in 23 of its stores, with expansion underway to 110 franchise locations.

By coordinating action across the wider ecosystem for digital inclusion – MNOs, governments, partners and innovators – and supporting partners with data, insights and tools to address barriers to digital inclusion, the GSMA continues to focus on the most underserved communities to ensure that no one is left behind in an increasingly connected world.

The GSMA Innovation Fund helps small and growing enterprises (commercially viable for-profit organisations that have significant potential for growth, such as startups or SMEs) and nonprofits de-risk, develop and scale innovations that promote inclusion and sustainable change in communities. Since 2020, Innovation Fund has disbursed £10.8 million across 24 countries in Africa and Asia. 

Over the past two years, the GSMA Innovation Fund has deepened its understanding of how digital innovation contributes to poverty reduction, improved livelihoods and resilience. Innovation Fund de-risks and accelerates early-stage startups that create positive change for users, communities and markets, often resulting in better resilience to shocks. Through targeted studies, our analysis shows that increased asset security and the ability to access information and financial services can support income generation and give a tangible boost to resilience. These are often sustained, marginal gains as solutions enable users to modestly increase their income (through agricultural yields or small-scale business growth), building a financial cushion that can be used to plan for the future, invest or save. For example, Ensibuuko, a grantee digitalising savings and loan records for village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) in rural Uganda, reduces paperwork and fraud while boosting trust and transparency through localised apps, USSD and ledgers tailored to user needs. Digital savings helped VSLA members track expenses more effectively, improving transparency and trust within the group. The digital ledger plays a critical role in increasing users’ access to formal credit – 89% of respondents said that Ensibuuko’s digital credit history increased their chances of accessing formal credit, reducing reliance on high-interest informal loans and supporting investment in valuable assets and businesses. 83% of users surveyed by GSA reported higher income as a result.

We have also examined how the Innovation Fund grantees scale their impact. We looked at grantees that scaled by replicating their solution in new markets, adding functionality or expanding their user base. As of 2024, 40% of grantees are actively scaling their businesses. For example, Africa 118, a grantee developing a digital job matching platform in Ethiopia, expanded its job tech marketplace (TaskMoby) from Addis Ababa to three additional Ethiopian cities and created 1,841 jobs. Its primary target group are unemployed graduates from technical and vocational education and training institutions (TVETs). Grantees also scale through strategic partnerships with MNOs and other key ecosystem stakeholders. For example, Bakhabar Kisan (BKK), a grantee in the Climate Resilience Innovation Fund round, partnered with MNO Zong. Through this collaboration, BKK gained access to Zong’s subscriber base to provide weather and agricultural advisory services for thousands of new customers in rural areas. Since the partnership began in 2023, BKK’s users have grown from 251,185 to 3,270,906. Since 2023, the Fund has facilitated more than 30 MNO partnerships.

Emerging technologies, including AI, have potential to catalyse the impact of digital technology. Innovation Fund alumni have been using AI in creative, context-specific ways to improve existing services rather than reinvent them. Grantees are developing and using AI applications across a range of areas, from issuing early warning alerts and providing tailored farming or health guidance to enabling sign language interpretation and ecosystem monitoring through sound and image recognition. These applications benefit marginalised rural communities through conservation, knowledge dissemination and information sharing on markets, livestock health and produce. The GSMA Innovation Fund for Impactful AI, launched in 2025, will focus on local AI solutions, grounding innovation in local realities with solutions from a range of sectors, including healthcare, agriculture, digital inclusion and financial inclusion.

Climate change now underpins many of the risks facing people, markets and institutions around the world. While its reach is global, the burdens of climate change are heaviest in LMICs. Tackling these impacts requires decisive, systemic action at speed and at scale, with approaches to climate action that reflect local realities and support long-term development. 

With a focus on cities, climate finance and nature tech, the GSMA seeks to bridge the gap between digital innovation and climate action to enable communities to leverage digital tools that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, strengthen climate resilience and support sustainable transitions while supporting commitments under the Paris Agreement. 

Over the past two years, we have focused on some of the world’s most pressing climate challenges. We have prioritised primary and secondary cities – the frontline of climate change – using mobile networks, data and IoT technologies to rethink how cities deliver essential services – from power and water to managing urban heat and climate risks. We then used the evidence from this work to develop policy guidance and guide financing conversations with city leaders, regulators and development partners. Between 2023 and 2025, our urban research has drawn attention to three broad types of digital adoption in cities: large-scale deployment of digital infrastructure in large and mega-cities supported by national programmes; the renewed focus on new city development globally; and fast-growing intermediary cities of under 1 million people. Our report, Digital Foundations: The Path to People-centred Smart Cities, highlights how digital infrastructure and technologies like AI – when anchored by MNOs – can guide rapid urban growth toward inclusive, resilient and climate-smart development.

This research has already led to action. In 2025, we collaborated with our long-standing partner UN-Habitat to shape the International guidelines on people-centred smart cities. Our engagement has been instrumental in shaping this important nonbinding framework, which was presented and adopted at the resumed second session of the UN-Habitat Assembly.

We have also explored how mobile and digital technologies can unlock new climate finance flows by improving data, lowering transaction costs and making it easier for small, inclusive projects to participate in emerging markets, such as the voluntary carbon market (VCM).

We have published guidance on digitally-enabled climate finance, supported inclusive innovators through the GSMA Innovation Fund and produced a practical guide and calculator to help startups navigate the VCM. In 2024, we worked with policymakers including Kenya’s Special Climate Envoy, to mainstream digital measurement, reporting and verification (dMRV), reduce barriers for smaller projects and channel trustworthy, digital finance to underserved communities. We have also assisted startups, through the GSMA Innovation Fund, to procure technical assistance for readiness assessments to enter the VCM.

At the same time, we have continued our work to explore the role of nature tech in supporting ecosystem protection and sustainable livelihoods. Healthy ecosystems underpin food security and climate resilience, yet communities that depend on natural resources for livelihoods often lack access to finance, information and tools for sustainable management. The GSMA has been building the evidence base, catalysing innovation and advocating for policy and investment that harness digital solutions for nature. We have done this through landscape reports on natural resource management and the blue economy, plus collaborations with multilaterals such as UNCCD, IUCN and UNDP to champion practical deployment pathways.

In 2022 and 2024, we supported 24 startups developing innovative digital solutions that support and improve climate resilience across Africa and Asia through the Innovation Fund for Climate Resilience. Grantees drew from a range of climate-related sectors, including agritech, aquaculture, biodiversity and water management. When designed and funded in line with the principles of locally-led adaptation, climate tech can help devolve decision-making (e.g. with community-facing data dashboards), confront structural inequalities (e.g. through interfaces in local languages, voice/USSD for low-literacy users and women-led data stewardship, and channel patient and predictable finance (e.g. mobile money for steady disbursements with community oversight). ¹ For example, Aloi received funding from the GSMA to improve financial inclusion for dairy farmers in rural Nepal and support them in adopting climate-smart agroforestry practices. The GSMA grant helped Aloi develop a digital platform for credit profiling, disbursing cashless affordable loans to be spent on accredited green and sustainable vendors, such as biogas equipment suppliers, and for loan repayment through milk sales. 

Over the past two years, the GSMA has continued to be a vital voice on the mobile gender gap. Through industry-leading research, case studies, data and targeted advocacy and awareness-raising efforts, we have worked to ensure this issue remains on the international agenda and a priority for national policymakers. Our annual flagship Mobile Gender Gap Report continues to fill a critical data gap and be widely cited and used by numerous organisations. We have also worked with MNOs and governments to institutionalise gender equality at scale, bringing together MNOs and commercial and development partners to reduce the gender gap in mobile ownership and usage through inclusive products and services. 

Since the GSMA Connected Women Commitment Initiative was launched in 2016, more than 50 MNOs have made formal commitments to reduce the gender gap in their mobile internet and/or mobile money services customer base. So far, our Commitment Partners have collectively reached more than 80 million women with these services, accelerating digital and financial inclusion for women across Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the past two years, we have worked with 24 MNOs to reach women in ways that are both commercially sustainable and socially impactful. For example, in Pakistan, GSMA data and evidence influenced JazzCash’s decision to launch an all-female sales team and group-based onboarding for women micro-entrepreneurs, reaching 830 women and onboarding 444 to mobile money and merchant tools that now support business growth.

We have shaped policy environments by engaging with key stakeholders and platforms at a national, regional and global level to increase awareness of the mobile gender gap, ensure it is a priority and support tangible action. This has included training more than 240 individuals from government and regulators to address the mobile gender gap. In 2024, we strategically engaged with the W20 Brazil process through evidence-based advocacy, policy input and leadership representation. Our insights, drawn from the Mobile Gender Gap Report 2024, informed key messaging and recommendations, culminating in strong commitments in the W20 Brazil Communiqué to halve the digital gender gap by 2030 and invest in inclusive digital tools and public services. We continued this work into 2025 with the W20 South Africa agenda, where GSMA messaging and recommendations to invest in digital inclusion programmes and address key barriers to device affordability and digital skills were reflected in the final W20 South Africa Communiqué.

Alongside our advocacy and MNO-focused work, we also invest in and support women innovators. Despite playing a critical role in innovation and economic growth, women entrepreneurs in LMICs face significant barriers to securing funding, receiving just 65% of the capital as their male counterparts. While many investors acknowledge the importance of gender balance, it is not yet a priority. In the past two years, the Innovation Fund has invested £1.4 million in 10 early-stage, women-led solutions, enabling them to grow and tackle pressing development challenges in eight countries.
The GSMA approach – combining data-driven evidence with global and regional advocacy and targeted support to MNOs and other partners – is helping to translate commitments to women’s digital inclusion into concrete action.

In the past two years we have prioritised access to early warning systems and leveraging mobile technology to deliver timely, actionable information to populations vulnerable to disasters. The leadership of the GSMA in the UN Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative is positioning the mobile sector as a critical enabler of disaster risk reduction. Through high-level advocacy and technical advisory, the GSMA has aligned 20 global MNO groups behind a shared industry pledge to expand mobile-enabled early warning systems through cell broadcast and location-based SMS. This has led to more than 60 humanitarian partnerships with MNOs in East Africa alone via EW4All.

Country-level work is strengthening national systems in disaster-prone regions:

• Haiti: A national disaster warning system is now active following a multi-stakeholder partnership sustained over seven years, reaching 2.8 million people.
• Pakistan, Tanzania, Madagascar and Nepal: We are supporting infrastructure readiness, steering committees and standard operating procedures to ensure faster, more reliable alerting to communities at risk.

Through the GSMA Innovation Fund, we have supported 41 innovative digital humanitarian solutions to date, accelerating anticipatory action and digital response, including AI-enabled alerting, IoT hazard monitoring and pre-disaster cash distribution. Grantees have also successfully raised £40 million in follow-on financing.

We continue to support the digital inclusion of refugees through the Connectivity for Refugees initiative. This initiative aims to close the digital divide and deliver reliable, affordable connectivity to 20 million forcibly displaced people by 2030. The GSMA works with humanitarian and industry actors to address affordability, energy constraints, coverage gaps and legal barriers. In Kenya, our advocacy efforts contributed to policy reform enabling 600,000 refugees to register SIM cards and access mobile money using refugee IDs, unlocking financial inclusion and safer access to services.

We have shaped digital humanitarian policy environments by convening and amplifying global and regional dialogues and participating in key initiatives and forums that set the agenda for inclusive digital response. In 2024 and 2025, we brought together governments, regulators, MNOs, humanitarian organisations and partners at convenings across the Pacific Islands, Asia Pacific, the Caribbean and Africa. These events showcased how mobile players are leading early warning systems, disaster preparedness and response efforts, and driving collaboration to improve policies and regulatory environments. 

By uniting MNOs, government actors, international organisations and innovators around shared goals of preparedness and equitable access to mobile-enabled services, we have helped secure 150 MNO signatories to the Humanitarian Connectivity Charter (HCC) – a clear global commitment to disaster resilience.