Africa: GSMA (M4H) Annual Report April 2023 calls on Mobile Financial Service providers to support financial inclusion of people affected by crisis

GSMA, a global organisation unifying the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal change, has launched the Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H) Annual Report April 2023 with a call on Mobile Financial Service (MFS) providers to support the financial inclusion of people affected by crisis, specifically for refugees and forcibly displaced people.

According to the report, over the past decade, mobile money has expanded from a niche offering in a handful of markets to a mainstream financial service, moving millions of households in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from the informal cash economy into a more inclusive digital economy; adding that in many crisis settings, mobile penetration is high enough to capitalise on the potential of mobile money and broader digital financial services to facilitate financial inclusion and the financial well-being of people in need of humanitarian assistance.

The report noted that as the world becomes increasingly digitised, so too is the humanitarian sector.

“Digital technologies are routinely used by humanitarian organisations as part of disaster preparedness and response, immunisation programmes, migration management, health interventions and more,” it stated.

It explained further that through building digital ecosystems, the M4H programme is able to support digital and financial inclusion, enable effective delivery of digital assistance and support connectivity for displacement-affected communities and emergency responders.

The GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation programme works to accelerate the delivery and impact of digital humanitarian assistance. This is achieved by building a learning and research agenda to inform the future of digital humanitarian response, catalysing partnerships and innovation for new digital humanitarian services, advocating for enabling policy environments, monitoring and evaluating performance, disseminating insights and profiling achievements.

The programme is funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and is supported by the GSMA and its members.