Ooredoo Maldives on Thursday announced the renewal of its Connected Women commitment to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA)'s Mobile Gender Gap.
GSMA's Mobile Gender Gap aims to increase the number of women that can access and benefit from mobile ownership and internet use.
Ooredoo stated that it will continue to collaborate with the GSMA Mobile for Development team to increase digital and financial inclusivity of women, through the telecom giant's programmes such as Ooredoo Smart Campus, Digital Literacy Camps and Cyber Safety Programs, among others.
Ooredoo Maldives joined GSMA's Connected Women movement in 2015.
GSMA is a London-based multinational industry organisation representing the interests of mobile network operators around the world. GSMA Mobile for Development's 2020 report on Mobile Gender Gap shows that there is still a substantial margin between men and women in owning mobile phones and accessing the internet, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
According to the report based on 16,000 surveys carried across 15 LMICs, women are eight percent less likely to own a mobile phone than men, with a margin of 165 million. Moreover, over 300 million fewer women access the internet from their mobile devices.
The report further highlighted that South Asia has the largest mobile gender gap of any region worldwide, with a mobile ownership gap of 23 percent, and a mobile internet use gap of 51 percent.
However, the report noted that South Asia also recorded the highest reduction in the mobile internet gender gap since 2017.
"Over 78 million more women have come online in South Asia in the last three years, while in other regions, considerably less progress has been made", stated GSMA.
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