Vodafone report highlights how connectivity is a lifeline for climate resilience

Vodafone has highlighted how connectivity is becoming critical infrastructure for climate resilience, as extreme weather events become more frequent, more severe and more disruptive.

A new report, Connectivity as a Lifeline: Enabling Climate Resilience in a Disrupted World, draws on Vodafone and Vodacom experience across Europe and Africa to show how mobile networks and digital services support climate resilience, from early warning systems and network preparedness to emergency response, digital aid and long-term recovery.

Extreme weather events have increased significantly in recent decades, affecting 1.6 billion people and causing more than US$2 trillion in economic losses over the past decade alone.

The findings show that connectivity can mean the difference between disruption and disaster, or between rapid recovery and prolonged crisis. When climate shocks hit, the ability to communicate, receive warnings, access services and move money becomes essential to public safety, emergency coordination and community resilience.

The report finds that:

• Early warning systems can reduce damage by up to 30 per cent when issued within 24 hours of a hazard, but only if warnings can reach people quickly and at scale.
• Around one-third of the world’s population remains unprotected by early warning systems, despite 95 per cent having access to mobile broadband networks and close to 80 per cent owning a mobile phone.
• Power failures remain a major risk to network resilience, with around 25 per cent of reported telecoms network incidents in the UK linked to power outages.
• 2 in 5 countries have not started establishing National Emergency Telecommunication Plans, leaving gaps in crisis preparedness and coordination.
• Less than 10 per cent of global climate finance reaches local-level climate activities, highlighting the role mobile money, digital vouchers and digital payments can play in getting support directly to communities.

Joakim Reiter, Chief External and Corporate Affairs Officer, Vodafone Group, said:

“As climate-related disasters become more frequent and severe, the risk is clear. If connectivity fails, warnings may not reach people, emergency services may be harder to coordinate, and communities may be cut off when they most need support.

This means that connectivity is now critical infrastructure for resilience. It must be strengthened before climate shocks hit, so it can keep people, services and economies connected when other systems are under strain.”

How connectivity supports climate resilience

The report highlights real-world examples of connectivity supporting climate resilience across Vodafone markets, underpinning each stage of the ‘predict, prepare, respond and recover’ climate resilience cycle.

In Germany, Vodafone helped support the rollout of Cell Broadcast after the 2021 Ahr Valley floods exposed gaps in emergency warning systems. In its first year, Cell Broadcast was activated 219 times to deliver emergency alerts to smartphones across Germany.

In the 2021 Ahr Valley floods, 13,000 fixed-line connections were destroyed, 59 base stations failed and around 25,000 customers temporarily lost mobile access. Despite the scale of the damage, around 85 per cent of stations in the affected areas remained operational and almost 90 per cent of mobile coverage was restored within 24 hours.

In Greece, Vodafone’s operations use continuity planning, backup power, fire-ready sites, alternative connectivity and emergency coordination to help keep networks available during escalating wildfire risk.

The 2024-25 cyclones in Mozambique affected 687,00 people and destroyed 118,000 homes. Vodacom has adapted its cyclone response model through enhanced warnings, pre-positioning of teams and suppliers, crisis simulations, utility coordination and satellite phones for critical staff.

The report also shows how digital services can support recovery when physical systems are disrupted. In South Africa, Vodacom used digital tools including e-learning, digital lending and e-vouchers to help communities recover after the KwaZulu-Natal floods.

Through Mezzanine, Vodacom Group’s subsidiary, digital voucher models have also been used in Kenya, including a partnership with Oxfam and World Vision that has disbursed more than KES 130 million across 11 climate-vulnerable counties since 2020, with a 100 per cent redemption rate.

Climate shock connectivity priorities for policymakers

Vodafone is calling for governments, regulators, industry partners and humanitarian organisations to work together to ensure connectivity remains a lifeline before, during and after climate shocks.

The report sets out four priorities for policymakers, regulators and partners:

• Enable investment in resilience. Governments should create pro-investment, pro-innovation frameworks that allow telecom operators to invest ahead of climate risk, including predictable regulation, streamlined approvals and incentives for network hardening in high-risk areas.
• Scale emerging technologies. Policymakers should accelerate the deployment of IoT, AI, satellite and mobile-enabled systems to support real-time detection, forecasting and population-wide alerts.
• Coordinate disaster responses. Governments, telecom operators, energy providers, emergency services and humanitarian actors should establish formal coordination frameworks before crises occur, including National Emergency Telecommunication Plans.
• Embed digital finance in adaptation action. Mobile money, e-vouchers and digital payments should be integrated into climate adaptation strategies so that support can reach households and communities faster when physical systems fail.

The report concludes that climate resilience is now a system-wide challenge. Mobile networks can help anticipate risk, keep essential services running, enable emergency response and support recovery, but only when digital infrastructure is treated as part of the wider resilience ecosystem.