State Telecom Distributes Free Mobile Device to Rural Women

The state telecom monopoly is investing 50.4 million Br to distribute 70,000 mobile handsets to rural women for the upcoming International Women’s Day.

The mobile devices will be distributed by Ethio telecom on March 8, 2019, to beneficiaries selected from 846 weredasacross the country. Each handset is valued at 720 Br, will have a SIM Card, 15 Br worth of airtime and provide text messaging and internet services.

The telecom took the initiative of distributing the mobile phones with the primary aim of encouraging women’s participation in the economy, social life and technology, according to Cherer Aklilu, an executive director at Ethio telecom. The telecom giant earned 16.7 billion Br in revenue in the first half of the current fiscal year.

“The mobile handsets will be given away to women who don't have one,” Cherer told Fortune. "Female mobile phone usage in Ethiopia is way lower than men."

Groupe Speciale Mobile Association, a global company that releases a report on mobile ecology, confirms Cherer's assertion of a gender gap in mobile phone usage.

"In low and middle-income countries the number of women-owned mobiles is 10pc lower than those of men," reads the Association's report released last year.

Even those who use mobile phones are less likely to be knowledgeable with technology services such as the internet, adds the report.

In these countries, 1.2 billion women do not use mobile internet, leading them to lag behind the digital world and holding them back from taking advantage of the economic empowerment that could be gained from technology.