Group Profile
Creating ‘A wonderful world’ is not just about providing exceptional telecommunication services. We also want to improve people’s lives by building supporting, strengthening and working for the community.
Millennium Villages’ project
The Millennium Villages’ Project at Columbia University’s Earth Institute aims to lift rural villages out of the poverty trap that afflicts more than a billion people worldwide. In 2007, Zain, Ericsson, and the Earth Institute announced a partnership to provide mobile communications and internet connectivity to the Millennium Village’s Project, covering up to 400,000 people in ten sub-Saharan African countries.
This initiative is directly in line with Zain’s commitment to Africa and the belief that affordable and reliable communication services can ultimately help the continent achieve its Millennium Development Goals - global targets for reducing extreme poverty and hunger by half and improving education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability - by 2015.
We have developed a comprehensive end-to-end telecommunication strategy initially for the villages of Dertu in Kenya, Ruhira in Uganda, and Molla in Tanzania.
In Kenya, Zain and Ericsson deployed a mobile network providing service to 5,000 people in Dertu and built a green-powered site using a combination of wind and solar power, identifying and addressing operating costs and power supply reliability as the two key deterrents to building telecommunication infrastructure in remote areas.
It is estimated that this solution will run at 80% increased efficiency over traditional diesel-powered mobile sites. The build-out of voice and data communications based on GSM/3G improves access to education, health, small business development and agriculture, as well as helping family members to stay in touch. Internet is a priority for health clinics, schools and community centers, while broadband applications reduce time-consuming travel and allow buyers and sellers to check prices of goods elsewhere in the area.
Dertu is now a mini-economic hub where people who live in neighboring villages now visit to make or receive calls. Furthermore, thousands of lives have been saved as it is an area where many women suffer complications during childbirth and where there is a high incidence of snake bites and malaria. "The people of Dertu say the arrival of the mobile network was the day Dertu was reborn", said Ahmed Mohamed, Science Coordinator for the Millennium Villages project in Dertu. "There is no greater support you can give a community than that".
In Tanzania and Uganda, Zain’s GSM network was upgraded to EDGE, improving coverage and network reach. Using a combination of fixed wireless terminals, mobile internet connectivity will be provided to schools and health centers. Plans are also in place to extend coverage to all 73,000 inhabitants in both village clusters.
Sony Ericsson and Ericsson have also provided handsets to community and health workers and piloted new healthcare applications for mobile learning purposes, as well as basic household data collection. For its part, Zain has provided SIM cards and established emergency numbers to improve access to healthcare and emergency services.
With the same goal in mind but on a smaller scale, Zain operations are partnering with local authorities to facilitate connections in nearby communities.
Lake Victoria initiative
In 2007, Zain partnered with Ericsson and the GSMA to extend mobile coverage across Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest inland lake, to provide better communication for the 30 million people in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda who live in its immediate vicinity. This joint initiative will fuel economic development and save lives on the lake, which sees around 5,000 deaths each year from fishing related accidents and piracy. About 800,000 people rely on the lake for their livelihood, including 150,000 fishermen and their dependents.
Weather Info for All initiative
In April 2009, The Global Humanitarian Forum and its president, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, together with Zain, Ericsson and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), announced a major initiative to radically improve Africa's weather monitoring network in the face of the growing impact of climate change.
Initiated by the Global Humanitarian Forum in response to Africa's severe gap in weather information highlighted at its annual event in June last year, the group of partners will deploy an unprecedented amount of weather observation equipment across Africa.
Africa has only 282 fully functioning stations contributing to the global monitoring system, a network eight times below the minimum standard recommended by WMO. Dubbed "Weather Info for All" the initiative aims to install 5,000 new stations throughout the continent over coming years, in what promises to save lives and bring increased economic opportunity to tens of millions of people.
