Vision and approach
Transformational solutions
Environment
Operating responsibly
Our contribution to the Millennium
Development Goals
By extending access to our networks and developing
innovative products and services tailored to emerging
market needs, we are contributing to sustainable
development and helping to improve people’s lives
and livelihoods. We also channel social investment in
programmes that promote sustainable development
through the Vodafone Foundation1, http://www.vodafone.
com/content/index/about/foundation.html.
In these ways, we have been contributing to the global effort to
alleviate poverty as defined by the UN Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) for 2015. The sections below set out examples of
how we are contributing to each of the eight MDGs.
In March 2015, the United Nations proposed 17 goals for
sustainable development to build on the foundations of the
MDGs, which were established in 2000 to be achieved by the
end of 2015. Focused in part on ending poverty and hunger,
and improving health and access to healthcare for women and
girls, Vodafone and the Vodafone Foundation will continue to
contribute to these goals through our programmes.
For more on how our products and services are contributing to
sustainable development, see our Transformational solutions
section. For further highlights of our Foundation programmes,
see our Foundation website, Mobile for Good, http://www.
vodafone.com/content/index/about/foundation/mobiles_for_
good/mobile_for_good_programmes.html.
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Research shows that access to mobile
telecommunications contributes to
economic development by helping to
increase productivity and national GDP in
emerging markets. It is estimated that a
10% expansion in mobile penetration in
developing markets could lead to a 4.2%
increase in total productivity, which in turn
drives GDP2.
Mobile solutions in specific areas such as finance and
agriculture also support economic development.
34 Vodafone Group Plc Sustainability Report 2014/15
Improving access to finance
Vodafone’s mobile money transfer and payment product,
M-Pesa, supports economic development by providing
access to basic financial services in emerging markets for
people without bank accounts. It enables people to send and
receive funds, save even small amounts, and take out loans or
insurance. Now well established in both Kenya and Tanzania,
M-Pesa continues to have a strong and growing presence in
Africa. Since 2013, it has been extended to the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Lesotho, Mozambique,
Romania and South Africa. There are now 19.9 million active
M-Pesa users, up 18% from 2013/14. See our Financial
inclusion section for further information.
Boosting agricultural productivity
Our Connected Farming in India report, published in 2015,
explored the potential impact of six mobile services designed
to improve the productivity and efficiency of agricultural
businesses in India, http://www.vodafone.com/content/
dam/vodafone/about/sustainability/2011/pdf/connected_
agriculture.pdf. Our research has shown that together the six
services could positively impact the lives of nearly 70 million
Indian farmers in 2020, generating more than $9 billion in
additional annual income for farmers.
This research built on findings from our Connected Agriculture
report, published in 2011, which found that mobile technology
could boost agricultural income by US$138 billion by 2020,
primarily in India, Africa and the Middle East, http://www.vodafone.
com/content/dam/vodafone/about/sustainability/2011/pdf/
connected_agriculture.pdf.
We continue to work with the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) and the development NGO, TechnoServe,
in a three year partnership known as the Connected Farmer
Alliance. The partnership aims to increase the productivity,
incomes and resilience of half a million smallholder farmers
across Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. In 2014/15, the
Connected Farmer Alliance announced its first commercial
agreements with Olam International (a coffee, cocoa and
Vision and approach
Transformational solutions
Environment
Operating responsibly
Our contribution to the Millennium Development Goals
cotton agribusiness) and Kenya Nut (a nut processor). Olam
will use our mobile technology to increase the productivity
of around 30,000 farmers in Tanzania who supply its produce.
The farmers will benefit from advice, access to M-Pesa and
real-time notifications about changes in market prices of their
crops. Kenya Nut aims to reach 50,000 nut farmers in Africa
to promote better communications, improve traceability,
enhance payment security and promote business efficiency.
Delivered by Safaricom (our associate), the service will connect
these farmers to training sessions, deliver electronic receipts
so they can easily track the value, volume and quality of their
produce, as well as providing access to M-Pesa payment and
loan services.
In Turkey, the Vodafone Farmers’ Club service uses mobile
technology to give farmers the information they need to
improve their harvests and livelihoods, saving them time and
money. Since its launch in 2009, the service has benefitted more
than 1.25 million farmers in Turkey. To date, more than 700
million SMS alerts with weather forecasts, crop prices and other
information tailored to local areas and crop types have been sent
to members. See our Agriculture section for more information.
Goal 2: Achieve universal
primary education
Mobile technology can be used to extend the
reach of education by enabling students in rural
areas to join lessons remotely, and by helping
teachers manage student attendance and
performance and access educational content.
Our Learn out of the box programme, being
implemented by the Vodafone Foundation in India, and
developed in partnership with Pratham Education Foundation,
aims to improve the standard of education at 1,000 low income
schools and target 70,000 underprivileged children in India over
three years. The service uses innovative software and mobile
internet to train teachers and help them engage students with
interactive learning materials and multi-media content.
The Vodafone Foundation is also helping children living in
refugee camps gain access to education. In partnership with
Italian NGO Don Bosco, the Vodafone Foundation opened the
first Instant Network School for children living in refugee camps
in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2013. Following the
success of this pilot, the Vodafone Instant Network programme
expanded in 2014/15 and 26,400 students and 500 teachers
across South Sudan and Kenya now benefit from Instant
Network Schools.
To support the roll out of Instant Network Schools, the
Vodafone Foundation developed Instant Classroom, a digital
‘school in a box’ that can be set up within minutes to connect
teachers and children to online resources even where power
and internet connectivity is unreliable or non-existent. Instant
Classroom was launched in March 2015, in partnership with
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and will
be deployed to additional schools in Democratic Republic of
Congo, Kenya and Tanzania with the aim of reaching more than
35 Vodafone Group Plc Sustainability Report 2014/15
60,000 children and young people over the next two years. See
our Education and employment section for further information.
Goal 3: Promote gender equality
and empower women
Using our mobile technology and services, we
are connecting women to education and skills
training, expanding access to job opportunities
and helping them improve their livelihoods, see
our Education and employment section.
Our Connected Women report explores the
impact of increasing women’s mobile phone ownership
and how mobile services provided by Vodafone and the
Vodafone Foundation are enabling women to access new
opportunities and improve their lives and livelihoods, http://
www.vodafone.com/content/dam/connectedwomen/pdf/
VF_WomensReport_V12 Final.pdf. Our research suggests that
increasing women’s access to mobile and scaling up the five
services explored in the report could benefit 8.7 million women
and have positive annual economic benefits worth $28.9 billion
across Vodafone’s markets by 20203.
We are helping female entrepreneurs manage their businesses
more efficiently and increase their incomes. For example,
Vodafone Turkey’s ‘Women First’ programme helps women use
mobile technology, access information, acquire new skills and
increase their incomes. The Women First Mobile Advertisement
Service, a key part of the service, is enabling women with little
experience of mobile technology to sell their handicrafts and
products on one of Turkey’s biggest online marketplaces using
SMS messages.
In 2014/15, the Vodafone Foundation launched the
#DigitalRickshaw campaign in India to set up Digital
Communication Information Resource Centres in 20
locations across the country. The centres empower local
women to use computers, learn about digital media and
access literacy programmes and information on beneficial
government schemes.
In focus: Helping women at risk of domestic violence
through TecSOS
We are empowering women in more developed markets.
The TecSOS mobile phone system, developed by the
Vodafone Spain Foundation with the Spanish Red Cross
and the TecSOS Foundation, is helping victims at high risk
of abuse connect to emergency services at the touch of
a button. There are currently 15,733 TecSOS handsets in
use in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and
UK. Since 2004 the handset has helped 41,211 victims of
domestic violence.
Find out more about TecSOS on the Vodafone
Foundation’s website, http://www.vodafone.com/content/
index/about/foundation/mobiles_for_good/tecsos.html.
Vision and approach
Transformational solutions
Environment
Operating responsibly
Our contribution to the Millennium Development Goals
We have a wide range of initiatives, which are part of our Diversity
and Inclusion strategy, to ensure we support female employees
in developing their careers, and that women represent a growing
proportion of management positions.
In 2014/15, we became one of the first organisations in the
world to launch a mandatory minimum global maternity policy.
This pioneering policy sets a minimum level of maternity pay
for women working across Vodafone’s 30 local markets. From
Africa to the Middle East, women at all levels of our organisation
will be entitled to at least 16 weeks of fully paid maternity leave
and full pay for a 30-hour week for the first six months
after they return to work, see the Our people section.
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Mobile technology can significantly improve the
efficiency of healthcare services, particularly in
remote areas.
In sub-Saharan Africa, we are working with GSK, the
Mozambique Ministry of Health, USAID and others
on the mVacciNation pilot programme, which aims
to boost child vaccination rates by around 5% in Mozambique.
Over 25,500 children have been registered with the programme
since its launch in March 2014 and 40,000 vaccinations
have been recorded. Using our mobile health solutions, the
programme has also provided over 4,000 real-time reports on
the number of doses of vaccines available. In 2014/15, we began
evaluating this pilot and will use what we have learned to make
improvements as we roll it out to a further 90 health centres
across the country. In India, our free SMS-based service reminded
parents across the country to get their children vaccinated.
Parents can opt in by sending a message from any mobile
network in India. They receive immediate confirmation followed
by reminders about their child’s immunisation schedule for a
period of 12 years. By the end of 2014/15, 300,000 children had
been enrolled in this collaborative programme with the Indian
Academy of Paediatrics.
For more information on our mobile health solutions, see our
Health section.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Using our mobile health solutions, we are helping
to improve women’s maternal health and access to
life-saving treatments.
‘Mobilising Maternal Health in Tanzania’,
a $14 million programme, is funded with support
from the American people as part of the President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through
the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID). The Vodafone Foundation implements
the programme through partnerships with the
Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in
Tanzania (CCBRT), Pathfinder International and the
Touch Foundation in Tanzania.
36 Vodafone Group Plc Sustainability Report 2014/15
Since the launch of the programme in 2009, more than 3,000
women have received treatment for obstetric fistula, a maternal
health condition that leaves women incontinent following
childbirth. Through the M-Pesa Text to Treatment programme,
the CCBRT hospital was able to transfer money to pay for some
of the poorest and most marginalised women to get to hospital
for life-changing surgery. As we have treated more women it
has become increasingly challenging to find the women with
obstetric fistula in rural areas. We are discussing with CCBRT
how they can partner with other health NGO partners to help
reach women with obstetric fistula and provide free transport to
surgery via M-Pesa.
The programme is expanding to help rural health workers
identify women at risk of complicated births and transport
them to health facilities where they can give birth safely.
In partnership with the Swiss Re Foundation, Pathfinder
International and Touch Foundation, the Vodafone Foundation
is working to improve access to better healthcare facilities for
pregnant women to prevent maternal morbidity and mortality.
Together, we have supported training in maternal, neonatal and
child health to 125 community health workers and 53 health
facility workers, as well as improving maternal healthcare
facilities at the regional hospital.
Visit the Vodafone Foundation’s website for more on Text to
Treatment, http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/about/
foundation.html.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria
and other diseases
Training and awareness-raising, coupled with
innovative distribution and administration
services, can play a role in addressing the
world’s most pressing health problems.
We are using our technology to help loveLife (http://lovelife.
org.za), a national HIV prevention initiative in South Africa, reach
more young people living with HIV/AIDS. loveLife’s 1,250 young
community leaders work with NGOs, schools and clinics to
meet face-to-face with young people across South Africa and
promote healthy, HIV-free living. Using our monitoring system
to track their activities, we enabled loveLife to capture data and
report back in real time.
Additionally, we are working with GSK, the Mozambique
Ministry of Health, USAID and others on the mVacciNation
pilot programme, which aims to boost child vaccination rates
by around 5% in Mozambique. In India, our free SMS-based
service reminds parents across the country to get their children
vaccinated (see Goal 4).
In Lesotho, the Vodafone Foundation M-Pesa Text to Treatment
model used in Tanzania is being replicated to ensure that
children living with HIV, can travel from rural communities
to health facilities for treatment. First these children have to
be found, so through the programme we are training health
Vision and approach
Transformational solutions
Environment
Operating responsibly
Our contribution to the Millennium Development Goals
workers armed with mobile phones and 4x4s to provide mother
and baby clinics to affected communities across the Mountain
Kingdom. Expectant mothers are referred to clinics for highly
effective preventive treatment, with ‘mother and baby pairs’
transported for treatment when either tests positive for HIV.
As well as transferring funds for transport for these mothers
and babies, mobile technology will also help speed test results,
cutting result turnaround from many weeks to just a few days.
For more information, see our Health section.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Communications technology can play a
significant role in enabling a low carbon
economy. It powers innovations that can help
individuals and organisations to reduce their
carbon footprints while bringing wider social and
economic benefits.
Building on our Carbon Connections research,
we have been working with the Carbon Trust
to quantify the carbon savings that Vodafone products and
services can bring for our customers through smart metering,
smart logistics and fleet management, call conferencing, and
cloud and hosting services. Based on this analysis, we estimate
the total carbon savings from Vodafone’s solutions in these
areas was 3.5 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent for active
connections in 2014/15, 50% more than in 2012/13.
We have set a new goal for our business linking our aim to
minimise our own carbon footprint with the savings we can
help our customers make: within three years we aim to enable
our customers to reduce their carbon emissions by twice the
amount of carbon we generate through our own activities.
Access to power remains a key issue for many of our customers
and a barrier to economic development. We are developing
solutions to bring reliable, renewable power to remote
communities in emerging markets using our own network
infrastructure and tailored solar-charging solutions.
In focus: Bringing solar power to rural communities
We are helping bring power to people with no access
to electricity. In 2014/15, over 5,000 solar powered
generators, connected by Vodafone M2M SIMs, were
distributed by BBOXX, delivering off-grid power in over
40 countries including Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda,
http://www.bboxx.co.uk/.
For more information, see our Transformational solutions section.
Measuring our contribution
Ongoing Objective
Be recognised as a
communications
company making one
of the most significant
contributions
to achieving
the Millennium
Development Goals
(MDGs) by March 2015
Read more in our Enabling a low carbon economy, Empowering
sustainable choices and Minimising our carbon footprint sections.
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership
for development
Telecommunications network operators
can help bridge the digital divide by
providing equipment and infrastructure
to people who live in remote areas or
at the margins of society. Working in
collaboration with other organisations,
NGOs and governments is central to our strategy to deliver
transformational products and services.
We are collaborating with major public and private sector
organisations such as the Pratham Education Foundation,
TechnoServe, the Swiss Re Foundation, Pathfinder International,
the Touch Foundation, GSK and USAID to develop and implement
solutions in the areas of agriculture, education and health.
37 Vodafone Group Plc Sustainability Report 2014/15
Achieved Partial Our performance
in 2014/15
As it is difficult to
measure recognition
in a meaningful way,
we have instead
concentrated
our efforts on
implementing
programmes and
services that contribute
to development.
Examples of how we
have contributed to
each of the MDGs are
detailed in the section
above.
Not achieved
Status
Not measured
Find out more about the wide-ranging research we have carried
out into the potential for telecommunications to positively
impact social, economic and environmental development
at https://www.vodafone.com/content/index/about/
sustainability/news_research_andcasestudies/research.html.
Notes:
1.Vodafone Foundation registered charity number 1089625. For more
information, please go to the Vodafone Foundation.
https://www.vodafone.com/content/index/about/foundation.html.
2.A report by Deloitte and the GSMA: What is the impact of mobile telephony
on economic growth? (2012)
http://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/
gsma-deloitte-impact-mobile-telephony-economic-growth.pdf.
3.Based on research conducted by Accenture Sustainability Services for
our Connected Women Report, published in March 2014
http://www.vodafone.com/content/dam/connectedwomen/pdf/VF_
WomensReport_V12 Final.pdf