A helicopter rescue pilot in a storm needs the best possible information, delivered instantly, to make the best decisions in emergency conditions. People in vulnerable communities need access to the best possible information too, delivered just as quickly and conveniently – for they live permanently in states of emergency.

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Mobile micro-solutions
Mobile phones hold the promise of becoming the planet’s first ubiquitous communications platform - and people living in vulnerable communities in Africa and Asia are already making use of innovative mobile phone applications to solve their most critical problems.

Impoverished farmers in India, girls in Nigeria at risk of HIV-AIDS (or later, maternal death), unemployed youths in Kenya, teachers in remote villages in Rajasthan – hundreds of thousands of people in the global south are using OneWorld’s ‘Mobile4Good’ applications to improve their life chances – or even save their lives.

‘Information is solution!’ say the farmers, who can now access precise, expert pieces of information on their mobile phones.  We don’t just mean access to general information like market prices.  We mean information exactly tailored to meet each individual’s very different needs, whether it is a farmer with an urgent question about saving his crop, or a Nigerian adolescent needing to protect herself from sexual abuse.

These nuggets of information allow individuals who have been disempowered for generations to sidestep the frustrating, manmade barriers that have traditionally curbed their potential and their prospects. This is information that can make all the difference for an individual between happiness and devastation, life and death. 

Mobile4Good initiatives
Mobile4Good (M4G) is the overarching name for OneWorld UK’s range of mobile applications.

• Our first mobile application was an award-winning jobseeker service known locally as ‘Kazi560’. Launched in 2004, it has now been used by tens of thousands of unemployed Kenyans searching for blue-collar jobs. 
• Its success led to the creation of ‘LifeLines India’, another award-winning initiative. Launched in 2006 in collaboration with our sister centre OneWorld South Asia, it is now being used by impoverished farmers in over two thousand villages to access expert agricultural knowledge. Evaluations show a 96% user-satisfaction rate. Two years later, OneWorld adapted the LifeLines application to meet the needs of teachers in West Bengal and Rajasthan.
• Our ‘Learning about Living’ application, piloted in 2007, brings expert answers to urgent questions raised by tens of thousands of young people in Nigeria about HIV-AIDS and other aspects of sexual health and gender equity – questions each young person finds easier to ask within the privacy afforded by confidential SMS texts. 

Partners
In order to deliver these Mobile4Good initiatives, OneWorld UK gathers together and coordinates complex networks of partners relevant to each location, as well as garnering financial and technological support from key global institutions.

Our local partners are drawn from the ‘beneficiary’ individuals living in vulnerable communities, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, schools, government agencies, and national telecommunications companies. Special thanks are due to the team working in our Delhi-based sister centre, OneWorld South Asia, with whom we collaborate seamlessly on the LifeLines India initiatives.

Our global partners include international NGOs and development agencies, major international telecommunication corporations, and a range of prestigious donors, who include the Vodafone Group Foundation, the Accenture Foundation, British Telecom (BT), Cisco Systems, Oxfam Novib, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. 

Future plans
OneWorld UK is currently exploring invitations to adapt and extend our mobile phone applications to other countries – e.g. in Mexico, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and possibly Morocco and Ghana – and other sectors, like community practitioners.

We look forward to our Mobile4Good concept continuing to be a game-changer, empowering individuals of all ages with the micro-solutions they need to improve their chance to live healthy and self-sustaining lives.