Changing Lives
vritti
May 2017
25
Disbursement of Medical Aids
by NGOs
Women health conditions are quite poor in
developing nations that are due to maternal
deaths, poor nutrition among girls and high
prevalence of HIV. The NGOs and UN can
partner with mobile money services so that the
aid reaches directly to the beneficiary. This not
only reduces the cost to disburse financial aid
but also prevents corruption and ensures that full
money reaches the women in need. Women can
then make use of the money to purchase for
medicines. Mobile money providers can also
collaborate with insurance companies and
launch micro savings and micro insurance
product for women. The women can save small
portions of money on which insurance cover is
provided and premium gets deducted
automatically every month from the new micro
savings mobile money account. Crowd funding
can also be done through mobile money
Organizations like World Food Program are
disbursing aid in countries like Kenya, Cameroon
and Zimbabwe, as mobile money to women’s
account which cannot be cashed out. It can only be
used to purchase meal vouchers so that the problem
of malnutrition among women gets addressed.
Vodacom Lesotho has collaborated with Lesotho
Ministry of Health, so as to disburse aids to
pregnant mothers and HIV positive children.
Through this initiative, not only the disbursement
of aid but tracking of patients and sending
reminders to them is also done.
Family Wallet
Family wallet is a concept where a single mobile
money account can be shared between the
members of the family. In economies where
mobile phone ownership is quite less among
women, family wallet concept can be used
where women can be onboarded on a mobile
money account owned by their husbands. The
access of services and limits on mobile money
usage can be controlled for each family member.
The women can thus deposit their savings in
cash to this common family account which can
then be put into various uses such as paying
for bills, purchasing goods etc. Family wallet
can have another variant where single mobile
money account is linked to multiple mobile
numbers of the family. With the family account,
women can do better planning and budgeting
and control the expenditure.