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Improving digital skills among rural women: An interview with Telenor Pakistan

SDGs Impacted

In today’s world, we know that mobile internet can bring invaluable benefits to millions of people worldwide. However, women do not equally partake in this opportunity. Pakistan has one of the largest mobile gender gaps in the world – women are 38% less likely than men to use, and therefore benefit from, mobile internet. Some of the key reasons include low literacy and digital skills, and a lack of perceived relevance. As part of their formal commitment to reach more women in Pakistan with mobile internet, Telenor Pakistan has been working to address these barriers, through their Kushaal Aangan IVR service for rural women, and the integration of the GSMA’s Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit (MISTT) into the platform.

Impact / Outcome
In just nine months since we launched the improved service on 16 August 2021, we have seen the primarily female Kushaal Aangan subscriber base grow from 0.7 million to over 1.9 million. The customer churn rate has dropped from 14% to 11%, and the monthly active user base has increased from 19% to 49%.
Funding sources
Private
Key Metrics
Empower and educate Pakistani women in rural areas
Locations
India & South Asia, Pakistan
Sector
Financial services
Intervention lever
Policy
Operating model
Fully private
Target populations
Women & girls, Rural
Year published
01 January 2022
Organization involved
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GSMA

The EDISON Alliance

A World Economic Forum Initiative