gisw13_chapters

inheritance rights. However, in many cases, women,especially in rural areas, do not have access to landdue to cultural and tradition restrictions existing inthe customary land laws that deny them independentland ownership rights.Projects that use mobile phones for women’sempowermentICTs, including the internet and mobile phones,can potentially play an important role in reducinggender disparities in communities. And in Tanzaniathere are some illustrative examples of this. Wayback in 2002, the BBC ran a story on how womenin Tanzania were increasingly accessing the internetto seek business opportunities as a result of the increasein internet cafés in the country. 5 At the time,it was observed that as more women in Tanzaniawere beginning to use the internet, women’s groupswere also beginning to look at ways of expandingits use and making it work better for women.More recently, there have been an increasingnumber of women’s organisations in Tanzania focusingon the use of technology for empowerment.One such organisation is the Tanzania Gender NetworkingProgramme (TGNP), 6 which embarked onestablishing knowledge centres across Tanzaniaaimed at giving grassroots women and men accessto ICTs. Key to note is that these centres aim toempower both women and men in using ICTs to becomemore involved in gender advocacy. The TGNPis also working on networking these centres underits “Jamii Voices” project. The project uses SMS andpush-to-talk voice messaging to allow local activiststo send messages about their work to variousaudiences. It is hoped that the project will allowgrassroots activists to create a bigger, more activeand more powerful network for action on genderissues and other community challenges impactingupon women in Tanzania.Another organisation, Comprehensive CommunityBased Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT),is using mobile money, commonly referred to asM‐Pesa, to help provide rural women with access totreatment for vesicovaginal fistula (VVF), also knownas obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal causedby difficult or frequent delivery. The mobile phonebasedcash transfer system allows these women toreceive funds to undergo treatment for this condition.Although the treatment itself is offered freeof charge at the Dar es Salaam hospital involved inthe initiative, patients need to pay for transport to5 Dickinson, D. (2002) Tanzanian women get online bug, BBC, 18November. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2487821.stm6 www.tgnp.orgaccess the centre. For many rural women, transportand accommodation costs were hindering accessto this free service. However, CCBRT sends moneyvia M-Pesa to fistula survivors to cover travel andaccommodation costs to the hospital in Dar es Salaamfor their repair surgery. The money is sent viaSMS to fistula volunteer ambassadors, who maybe former patients, health workers, or staff of nongovernmentalorganisations, who identify and referwomen suffering from fistula for treatment. The ambassadorsretrieve the money at the local VodacomM-Pesa agent and buy bus tickets for the patients.When the patient arrives at the hospital, the ambassadorreceives a small incentive, again via M-Pesa.It is reported that in 2010, 268 fistula surgerieswere performed at the CCBRT hospital, of which 129were on women who travelled on transport paid forthrough M-Pesa. 7 The organisation reports that 314fistula surgeries were conducted between Januaryand June 2013. 8 However, it not stated how many ofthese were conducted as a result of the facilitationfrom M-Pesa transactions. M-Pesa, a service providedby Vodacom, is by far the biggest mobile moneyservice in Tanzania, with 9.5 million subscribersout of the 27.6 million mobile subscribers. Further,38% of the national SMS traffic is exchanged via thesame network, making it the leading telecom providerin Tanzania.Still in health, yet another initiative championedby the government in partnership with the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Foundationand other health development partners iscalled Wazazi Nipendeni – meaning “Parents, LoveMe” in Swahili. 9 This is a national Healthy Pregnancyand Safe Motherhood multimedia campaign,which allows expectant mothers to receive free textmessages and appointment reminders in Swahili.This service also remains accessible to mothers ofnewborn babies up to 16 weeks of age. Supportersof the mothers such as husbands, friends and familyand general information seekers are also able toaccess the service. The service uses the short-code15001, which is listed in all campaign materials ofthe initiative. Therefore anyone interested in receivinghealthy pregnancy information and appointmentreminders is free to send the word MTOTO – meaningchild – to the short-code 15001 in order to startreceiving the free texts. The initiative was launchedin November 2012, and it has been reported that“125,000 registrants were reached in April 20137 www.unfpa.org/public/home/news/pid/7697#sthash.SnH9Vk3W.dpuf8 www.ccbrt.or.tz9 www.cdcfoundation.org/what/program/mhealth-text-messagingcampaign-tanzania223 / Global Information Society Watch