Mobile telephony and network operator Uninor’s corporate social responsibility project, which enables women villagers in Tamil Nadu to get access to mobile technology and use it for income generation, was the only Indian initiative in addition to three other projects chosen by the GSMA mWomen programme for showcasing at its launch event Thursday in Washington. The listed speakers included US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair.
Launched by the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, the GSMA mWomen Programme seeks to empower women using mobile technologies. The GSMA is a global mobile communications industry network of 800 mobile operators and 200 companies across 219 countries.
Rajiv Bawa, executive vice-president, corporate affairs, who represented Uninor at the event, told FE: “Mobile inclusion is an effective tool to bridge the digital divide and empower people. It has the potential to not only make a difference to the lives of people but also businesses over a period of time. Mobile inclusion has broader economic implications, too.” A Deloitte study has calculated that a developing country’s GDP can go up by 1.2% if the mobile phone penetration increases by 10%.
The Uninor pilot project is being run with the help of Hand-in-Hand, an NGO. Under the project, 50 women have been selected and made computer literate. Today each women is running a citizen centre to train more women and provide computer services to help her in income generation. The target is to scale it up to 500 projects across India. Uninor’s corporate responsibility head Madhu Sirohi adds, It’s self-sustaining model where the entrepreneur is supported but not sponsored.
Such women-centric projects are particularly important in the Indian context because of a high mobile gender gap of 31% and the consequent missed business opportunity. Fewer women mobile users means that revenues worth $13 billion are missed every year globally, including $3.6 billion in South Asia, according to Women and Mobile: A Global Opportunity.
Prepared by Vital Wave Consulting for GSMA and Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, the report focuses on the challenges confronting women in using mobile technologies in low- and middle-income countries like Kenya and India. The report projects that women would account for two thirds of potential new mobile subscribers. It is to be seen how effective a catalyst mWomen would be in ushering in women’s mobile inclusion.
Highlights
Women and mobiles worldwide
There are 300 million fewer female subscribers than male subscribers worldwide
A woman is 21% less likely to own a phone than a man in low and middle-income countries – 23% in Africa, 24% in the Middle East, and 37% in South Asia
Two thirds of potential new subscribers for mobile network operators will be women
Women in rural areas and lower income brackets stand to benefit the most from closing the gender gap
93% of women report feeling safer because of their mobile phone
85% of women report feeling more independent because of their mobile phone
41% of women report having increased income and professional opportunities once they own a phone
MNOs are missing a $13 billion per annum revenue opportunity, with the greatest potential gains in South Asia worth $3.6 billion
Source: Women and Mobile: A Global Opportunity by Vital Wave Consulting for GSMA and Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
Source: The Financial Express
Published on 10 October 2010