Countries across Southern Africa are working to increase the use of mobile phone data (MPD) to produce more accurate and timely official statistics.
Key players from all 16 Member States in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) gathered for an inspiring four-day workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 19-22 May, 2025, focused on advancing the use of mobile data for statistical purposes and policy.
The main objective of this workshop [was] to build the capacity of SADC Member States, in order to use mobile phone data for official statistics and also for policymaking decisions.
- George Ah-Thew, Senior Programme Officer, ICT, SADC Secretariat.
Successfully using MPD for statistics and policy requires strong collaboration and data sharing agreements between a number of different partners. The Putting Mobile Phone Data (MPD) to Work for Statistics in the SADC workshop, organized by the World Bank, brought together more than 115 key stakeholders from across the public and private sectors, and civil society, including Ministries responsible for ICT, National Statistics Offices (NSOs), mobile network operators (the data holders), national regulatory authorities, and data protection authorities.
The benefits of mobile network data for statistics
Data from mobile network operators holds much potential to transform statistics, making them more accurate, useful, and up-to-date. For example, anonymized MPD can offer timely insights into population density, mobility trends, food security, and more, without relying on people’s responses to household surveys. MPD can also provide vital information to help countries track and monitor progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
We are helping countries to initiate mobile phone projects, and we have developed methodologies to help them use MPD in the calculation of information society statistics, particularly on SDG indicator 17.8.1 which is the percentage of the population using the internet.
- Esperanza Magpantay, Senior Statistician, ICT Data and Analytics, International Telecommunication Union
However, NSOs face a number of challenges in accessing this type of privately held data, and there are some common hurdles that can stand in the way of this type of data sharing.
The workshop included training on how to use MPD effectively for statistics, and insights into the value of using this type of data, from a consortium of partners, including Flowminder, Positium, University of Tokyo, Nommon, and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (the Global Partnership). The training was coordinated by the World Bank’s Global Data Facility Mobile Phone Data Program (GDF-MPD), which seeks to operationalize and support the use of mobile phone data for policy in 30 countries by 2030.
A lot of NSOs at this point in time are beginning to tap into [mobile phone] data, and we are seeing capacity grow across Africa; NSOs are beginning to improve their skill and capacity to use big data, so it remains a very viable source of information that statistical offices and governments can use to inform policy and decision-making.
- Victor Ohuruogu, Senior Africa Regional Manager, the Global Partnership.
Resources for accessing mobile network data for statistics
Over the past year, the Global Partnership has been working with partners across sectors to tackle the challenge of how to responsibly and ethically share MPD for public good. This work culminated in the recently published Roadmap to Accessing Mobile Network Data for Statistics, a guide to support governments, NSOs, and other stakeholders navigate the first steps to using MOD for statistics, including case studies form 18 countries that have successfully achieved this.
The roadmap complements existing tools, such as those available through the World Bank’s GDF-MPD repository (GitHub), which support the technical aspects of data sharing.
Read more about the workshop.
