‹noscript>
Free Phones
Article
Digital Financial Services Digital Inclusion Digital Literacy Digitization Planning Digitization Risks & Barriers Financial Literacy Gender Mobile Money Mobile Phone Access

Can Free Phones Close the Gender Divide?

Published by
Catherine Highet, Nisha Singh & Arisha Salman
2021
Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)
View Resource

This article explores the gender gap in mobile phone ownership and efforts to get phones into the hands of more women at the last mile. While these efforts have undeniably increased women’s access to phones, it is less clear if and how women are using phones to improve their lives.

The article concludes that handset affordability is far from the only barrier to women’s use of mobile phones. Initiatives aimed at increasing women’s access to mobile phones should be carried out together with norm-aware interventions that increase the value proposition of mobile phone ownership, address ongoing costs, tackle digital financial literacy, and use behavioral nudges to help women see the phones as tools to improve their lives.

Leave a Reply

View all comments

Related Resources

Read
Article
Digital Inclusion Digital Transformation Digitization Planning Program Quality
2023 01 31 07 38 30 USAID Digital Principles How To Note.pdf and 4 more pages Work Microsoft​ Ed
Article
Digital Inclusion Digital Transformation Digitization Planning Program Quality

How-To Note: Addressing the Principles for Digital Development in Project and Activity Design

USAID
2022

How-To Note: Addressing the Principles for Digital Development in Project and Activity Design

This brief, user-friendly guide helps program design teams understand and prioritize the Digital Principles most relevant to their work. Through a series of leading questions and worksheets, the digital activity design checklist provides actionable guidance for each Digital Principle and shares additional resources for ensuring that programs are well-designed and effective.
Read
Brief
Consumer Protection Data Privacy & Security Digital Payments Digital Recordkeeping
2a. SEEP LearningBrief COVER
Brief
Consumer Protection Data Privacy & Security Digital Payments Digital Recordkeeping

Digital Savings Groups

By Mark Staehle
SEEP Network
2020

Digital Savings Groups

This learning brief examines the design options and essential tradeoffs in solution development based on a survey of 12 digital savings group (DSG) solution providers. The findings are outlined in six sections: 1) Introduction; 2) The benefits of savings groups; 3) User experience; 4) The business of DSGs; 5) Consumer protection, and 6) What will […]