Access to mobile services in developing countries has outpaced the rate at which much of the population is gaining access to basic services, such as electricity, sanitation and banking, a report by GSMA has revealed.

However, the dominance of mobile services in emerging economies has placed the mobile market in a position to improve access to energy and water, the ‘Mobile for Development’ report noted.

While 1.2-billion people lacked access to electricity, and 768-million were without access to improved water sources, over 84% of the population in emerging markets had some form of access to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) coverage.

According to GSMA research, 643-million people globally had GSM coverage but no electricity, and 262-million people without access to improved water sources had GSM coverage.

“Across the developing world, around 40% of people now actively subscribed to mobile services and well over 50% have access to a mobile [phone], despite not owning one,” the report pointed out.

Another report by GSMA, ‘Digital Inclusion’, noted that, because of its “near ubiquity”, mobile technology could act as an enabler and aid underserved areas in accessing education, healthcare, energy, banking and improved water services.

The report suggested this could be achieved though five identified channels, including leveraging mobile infrastructure in off-grid environments to support rural electrification efforts and leveraging the mobile operators’ distribution reach and mobile money agent networks to reach underserviced customers.

Further, mobile operators could provide flexible, convenient and secure mobile-enabled payment solutions for low-income populations, while using higher rates of mobile phone ownership to collect or disseminate critical information on utility services and supply chain management.

Lastly, players in the region could enable machine-to-machine connectivity, remote monitoring and pay-as-you-go capacity of decentralised utility systems for the mobile-enabled population that lacked access to energy and water services but boasted GSM coverage.

This emerged as GSMA’s Mobile for Development Utilities unit, in conjunction with UK Aid, moved to leverage mobile technology to improve basic energy, water and sanitation services in underserved communities.

The parties provided advisory services for mobile operators and applied research and knowledge sharing, including case studies, primary research and working groups’ outputs.