For Marion, the challenge of starting her own business was not lack of initiative – she had plenty – but rather dearth of start-up capital. At 20 years old, Marion dropped out of school because she didn’t have sufficient school fees. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she lives, this is a common trend for many women and girls, one that stretches across sub-Saharan Africa and far beyond. But Marion was undeterred.
Thanks to her friend’s suggestion one day, Marion latched onto an idea of selling pre-paid mobile airtime to financially support her parents and four siblings with whom she lives. She started working at a small restaurant as a server, in order to save enough money to break into the business. Marion saved and saved, and began to sell airtime in bits and pieces. Yet by the time she turned 22 and made the decision to do it full-time, she was 70,000 Tanzanian shillings (US$43) short of the 100,000 TZS (US$62) required to finance the initial capital. Marion had nowhere to turn to make up the difference. And now this shortage of cash is keeping her from pursuing what should be a tangible dream – to become an entrepreneur and move into her own home.
Fortunately, new opportunities are emerging that address Marion’s challenge.
Mobile technology continues to be an enormous growth industry in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where approximately 3.5million jobs can be attributed to the mobile industry according to GSMA. With the surge in mobile connections around the world, there is rightly a great deal of interest in using the technology to maximize development outcomes. This includes the delivery of key information and health services, the use of mobile money for those who are unbanked, and the ability to establish social and business networks without having to travel great distances. For women like Marion, this is an enticing pairing of potential long-term employment and enhanced livelihood.
Despite the gains mobile telecommunications have had on national economies, there continues to be significant gaps in how much individuals have benefited economically from mobile services and applications. This includes the extent to which women have been able to participate in the retail channels of mobile network operators, beyond the sale of top-up cards and accessories that fetch little profit. These retail chains are not only where basic mobile necessities such as airtime and SIM cards are sold and marketed, but they also serve as the frontlines of the rapidly-growing mobile financial services industry. This ballooning sector includes mobile payments and savings, insurance purchases and conditional cash transfers, services that are traditionally unavailable for the unbanked – particularly women. The business of selling mobile products and services can be an important income stream but, in most markets, women are not participating on par with their male counterparts.
This leaves Marion and her female counterparts at a distinct and, frankly, unnecessary disadvantage.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, in partnership with leading mobile operator Millicom (Tigo), have joined forces on an innovative project to correct this trend and maximise mobile financial service opportunities for women entrepreneurs and their communities throughout Tanzania, Rwanda and Ghana. This public-private partnership will showcase a sustainable and scalable approach to increasing the number of women entrepreneurs working as mobile money agents in the retail networks of mobile operators.
The 18-month partnership will work to address two key challenges that exist throughout the three countries – broad levels of financial exclusion amongst the general population, and lower levels of women’s participation in mobile retail chains. Both challenges impact Marion’s ability to afford the cost of school, yet the potential mobile solutions broaden her access to financial, health and social services. In becoming a mobile money agent, Marion and other women can begin to redress sub-Saharan Africa’s high rates of unbanked – only 12% of the region’s adult population has access to any form of formalized banking. They do this by bringing in new mobile money clients and keeping them on-board, largely because of the trustworthiness and relationship-building that women provide.
Together with leading local micro-finance institutions, the project will be working with over 4,000 women to not only increase their income as they conduct mobile money transactions but also improve their financial literacy, business acumen and access to capital – a critical component to business growth that has hampered Marion from launching into it full-time – so that they may establish and expand their own businesses.
Through a series of reduced interest loans and locally-tailored business training, the participating women will receive support that has been elusive to-date in mobile money services, thereby improving their capability, confidence and capital. There are benefits for mobile operators as well when they include women in mobile value chains, as recent research from the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women has confirmed.
It will also have multiplying effects for their families and communities at-large. With this higher-value income stream, thousands of women will have additional funds necessary to invest in their own families, whether that means sending their children to school or paying for medical care or household items. On a larger scale, this improved income might be reinvested in expanding businesses where women can hire additional employees, creating job opportunities for their communities and contributing meaningfully to the local economy. As part of this project, the partners will be assessing the extent to which this is a successful model for mobile operators around the world to replicate, in order to expand mobile money operations and financial inclusion for the unbanked.
This is a new business model that, if proven successful, will achieve positive development outcomes for Marion and her female compatriots, and increased revenue for mobile operators. It applies the best components of both the public and private sectors for enhancing economic growth and equitable participation. For USAID and the Cherie Blair Foundation, we believe that women need increased opportunities in proven growth industries, so that we are not making stand-alone investments. Consider the opportunity that awaits Marion if she can channel income from her mobile money business into a formal education, not just for herself but for her family. This is an opportunity we cannot afford to let pass.
As such, we are tremendously excited to announce this ground-breaking partnership and, together, shape the next mobile revolution – with Marion alongside – in key emerging markets in Africa. We look forward to sharing the project’s progress in the coming year.
For more information, please visit cherieblairfoundation.org and usaid.gov.
This article was originally published by Devex Impact, a global initiative of Devex and USAID, that focuses on the intersection of business and global development and connects companies, organizations and professionals to the practical information they need to make an impact.
It’s not been a good year for England’s international football team. Of course, this is something that can be stated, quite accurately at the end of most years. It’s a recurring problem, the way we always seem to fail to punch our weight in the big tournaments. The World Cup qualifiers this autumn were a case in point.
An over-riding concern, as far as the actual football goes, must be the depressing lack of quality in an England team made up, as usual, of multi-millionaires, millionaires, and perhaps two or three of the merely very rich.
Against San Marino, a motley crew of one lower-league pro and ten part-timers, the pride of England laboured mightily, but showed very little class or penetration, admittedly against opposition whose ambitions stretched no further forward than the halfway line. But still, the glass-half-full brigade will argue, we won by five – and so we did. But it could and should have been better, and we can’t just brush aside the question of why it wasn’t.
Poland provided a higher class of opponent, but having taken the lead, somewhat fortuitously, England couldn’t build on it, couldn’t stem the tide of red flowing towards them, and ultimately couldn’t hold their lead. Where, we are justified in asking, was the class and composure? Where were the passing skills, why was possession so hard to win and to retain?
With the money in the game, the long-established infrastructure, and the size of our nation relative, say, to a country like Holland which produces excellence as a matter of course, we should be doing better. Something is rotten in the state of England. What are the missing ingredients?
Allow me to propose an old-fashioned answer: Pride and passion.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the players who represent England are lacking totally in either commodity, but I would venture the opinion that this is no longer the over-riding motivation. Money – oodles of it – looms far too large within the game. To clear the players’ heads, to rid them of competing considerations and leave them focused on the job in hand, to nurture the mindset that they are representing their country, and carrying the hopes of millions, I would propose – quite seriously – that we abandon henceforth the practice of paying players to play for England.
This is not a new idea, not by any means. Before World War Two, players selected for England were invited to choose a match fee OR a souvenir medal – not both. They invariably opted for the medal – and this in an era when professional football wages were capped at a level not far above those of a skilled worker. But pride and passion motivated them.
Nowadays of course, footballers earn a vast amount, and some would say good luck to them – but do they really need to be paid over and above their club contracts for what is still a signal honour? How does this affect the way we see them?
As things stand, the emotional distance between the crowd and the players is magnified by a patently enormous gulf in financial status, which breeds resentment among the fans when things aren’t going well on the field (look at him, fifty grand a week, and he couldn’t trap a bag of cement). Would the frequently toxic nature of that crowd/team relationship not be improved if the players were really playing for the shirt and the cap, and nothing else?
Removal of monetary rewards would not be universally popular among the players – but might this not help sort out the committed from the opportunist, and thus – to risk an archaic phrase – engender a more positive team spirit?
There would be no unpalatable need for the FA to profit by the players’ noble sacrifice. The money that now goes on match fees and bonuses should instead be diverted to a charity of the players’ choice – and would this not only provide an additional incentive to win, but also enhance the team’s good-guy credentials?
They might feel, deep inside, that they’re a cut above the opposition – who are shamelessly, brazenly, doing it for the money. It might even give them that crucial edge. Success is, after all, about the steady accumulation of marginal gains.
No match fees or any bonus, not a red cent – just an international cap. No taint of lucre in the motivations of the players, who would in any case be set for life even if they never earned another penny. No charge of ‘mercenary footballers’ from a disgruntled crowd – rather it would be: well done lads, you’re doing it for England and glory. If you didn’t win – well, we know you were giving of your best, for love of the shirt and charitable causes.
Can there be a better incentive than national pride and sheer altruism, uncluttered by the financial bottom line? Wouldn’t there just possibly be a whole new dynamic around the currently embattled England setup that might even take us onwards and upwards? Am I being hopelessly idealistic or even naïve? Perhaps – but I would humbly suggest that it’s got to be a better way, and is certainly worth a try.
