Watch: Connecting pregnant women to emergency care in rural Tanzania

Thousands of pregnant women in rural areas of Africa are unable to travel to hospital in a pregnancy-related or maternal health emergency, putting their lives and their unborn babies’ at risk. Vodafone Foundation’s m-mama service and app uses mobile technology and mobile money platform M-Pesa to connect pregnant women and new mothers in rural Tanzania to emergency services. The programme empowers local taxi drivers to act as ‘taxi ambulances’ in places where emergency transport is rarely available.

Vital services like m-mama can only be utilised through accessible 4G-enabled devices. Read our new Africa.connected 4G access paper on why multilevel-partner interventions are needed to achieve digital inclusion and enable the economic and social gains in sub-Saharan Africa that 4G connectivity brings.