The global shift to digital accelerated at an unprecedented rate during Covid-19, powering innovation across almost every sector. Perhaps none more so than e-commerce: in the three years since the start of the pandemic, it has seen a $2.4 trillion increase in online retail revenue.
E-commerce and wider digital services present a huge opportunity to deliver mobile solutions at scale – not only to the benefit of industries, like education, healthcare, and logistics; but also, to enable social advances in areas, such as sports, hospitality, and entertainment.
The potential for mobile deployment is particularly significant in Commonwealth regions, like Africa, where this technology is already a key enabler. However, there are still challenges to overcome, which is why many African organisations are collaborating with UK partners to bolster the continent’s digital infrastructure. Together, they are using mobile innovations to drive life-changing advances across both business and society – and to finally bridge the digital divide.
“Mobile phones are the most inclusive technology on the planet,” explains Dr Mike Short CBE, Chief Scientific Advisor for the UK Department for International Trade (DIT). However, only when they’re reinforced by an accessible, reliable, and affordable network can they reach their true potential – something which UK-based companies are making possible across Africa.
The GSMA: Dialling into the power of mobile
Discovering, developing, and delivering innovation to bring about positive change is a goal of the UK-headquartered Global System for Mobile Association (GSMA) – an international organisation which represents the worldwide mobile communications industry.
“The importance of mobile broadband cannot be overstated,” says Lara Dewar, Chief Marketing Officer. Not only is it a gateway to the internet; it is fundamental in advancing progress toward digital inclusion, economic growth, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Last year, the mobile industry increased its impact on all SDGs, with the biggest improvements seen in SDG 1: No Poverty, SDG 2: Zero Hunger and SDG 4: Quality Education; especially in developing countries where these come as everyday challenges.
As part of its mission to unify the mobile ecosystem for good, the GSMA launched the Connected Society programme, which works to remove the barriers standing in the way of underserved communities and connectivity.
For instance, in collaboration with the digital communications company, Banglalink, the GSMA distributed the Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit (MISTT) to support mobile users in Bangladesh. By empowering people with the digital skills needed to access mobile services, they succeeded in training 117,000 users and increasing usage by 228% in just three months.
On top of this, Dewar notes the progress the GSMA has made in its Connected Women programme, which aims to increase the proportion of women using mobile internet and mobile money services – currently, 33% less than men.
“Since 2016, over 40 mobile operators have made formal commitments to reduce the gender gap in their mobile internet and mobile money customer base. So far, they have collectively reached over 55 million additional women,” advancing digital and financial inclusion, and opening considerable market opportunities for the mobile industry.
M-PESA: Sending money home
In 2007, the UK telecommunications company, Vodafone, and its Kenyan associate, Safaricom, received funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to launch Africa’s first-ever mobile money transfer service: M-PESA.
M-PESA came as a response to Africa’s unbanked population, who would typically send money to each other by hand. “We saw an opportunity to launch a service that would enable any mobile phone customer to send money,” explains Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, Managing Director of M-PESA.
And it was only ever going to be a mobile solution, as 99% of internet connections on the continent are made through mobile phones. It was “the best way to ensure that we left no one behind,” continues Lopokoiyit.
What started as a simple money transfer service using SMS is now a two-sided network
Chief External and Corporate Affairs Officer at Vodafone group
Today, M-PESA supports over 50 million customers across seven African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Tanzania. “What started as a simple money transfer service using SMS is now a two-sided network,” reveals Joakim Reiter, Chief External and Corporate Affairs Officer at Vodafone. Customers can facilitate payments, manage credit, and will soon be able to grow investments – all from the convenience of their mobile phones.
With collaboration embedded in these services, M-PESA has significantly improved Africa’s financial inclusion – an accomplishment it owes to its customers. “We can only be as successful as the community around us,” says Lopokoiyit, which is why it plans to continue advancing the capabilities of mobile technology for the betterment of its customers’ lives.
Moving forward together
In the digital world, so much support to life and business comes through communications and access to information and skills
DIT Chief Scientific Advisor
The GSMA and Vodafone represent just one part of a wider narrative in which the UK is a key partner in the world’s digital development. In the same way, their co-creations with fellow Commonwealth nations represent just some of the solutions helping to reveal the transforming power of connectivity.
“In the digital world, so much support to life and business comes through communications and access to information and skills,” explains Dr Short. And so, as more trade and commerce services move online, stakeholders must continue working together to ensure everyone has access – and that everyone knows how to get the most out of them.
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