Source Link: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/hottopics/topic.cfm?ID=6463_8184_5701_282_6201&From=HT
AusAID and USAID have joined hands to fund and support the GSM Association (GSMA) mWomen programme aimed at narrowing the mobile phone gender gap and provide life-changing services to women in developing communities.
Purpose of the “Developing a Business Case to Close the Mobile Phone Gender Gap”, a GSMA mWomen project is to look for the innovations and ways to make mobile phones more accessible to poor women, and help them benefit from digital revolution.
The project will look for the ways how mobile phones can be used to improve the situation of women related to health care, education, financial inclusion and income-generation. This will include research in Egypt, India, Uganda and Papua New Guinea. The GSMA mWomen programme will use the results of this research to work with the mobile industry to improve women’s access to mobile phones and services provided through this technology. AusAID is contributing US$533,800 in 2010-11 to support the project.
Research shows that women in low-to-middle income countries are 21 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone amounting to 300 million fewer women than men. GSMA expects that mWomen programme will enable at least 150 million women around the world to get access to new tools that can gop a long way in improving their lives.
Mobile phones can provide a wide range of social and economic benefits to women if they get access to owing the one. Mobile phones can provide women living in remote and rural areas with access to bank accounts and formal credit. In Pakistan, text messages have been used to deliver basic literacy and numeracy classes to students, as well as to deliver critical information on health and nutrition to young women. In India, text messaging has been used to provide agricultural workers with up-to-date information on commodity prices at each market, enabling them to determine where and when to go to get the best prices for their produce.
The GSMA mWomen programme is a global partnership between the worldwide mobile phone industry and the international development community. It uses the power of the private sector to accelerate access to mobile phone services for the unconnected and to provide services to women living in the developing world via the mobile platform.
