• Safaricom & Vodafone plan M-Mama launch in Ethiopia after govt talks; ministries back integration into health & digital systems.
• M-Mama utilizes call centers, GPS, Telebirr payments & offline sync, aligning with Ethiopia’s Digital Health Strategy & data laws.
• Initial funding from Vodafone, Safaricom & World Bank; long-term sustainability to rely on Ethiopia’s health budget & PBF models.

Safaricom Ethiopia and the Vodafone Foundation have held high-level discussions with Ethiopian authorities on introducing M-Mama, a mobile-based maternal and neonatal emergency referral system. Meetings took place on 29–30 September 2025 in Addis Ababa, attended by senior executives from Safaricom Ethiopia, the Safaricom Ethiopia Foundation, and Vodafone Foundation experts. Delegates met with the Ministries of Health, Transport and Logistics, and Innovation and Technology, all of whom expressed support for integrating the system into Ethiopia’s health and digital infrastructure.

M-Mama, already operational in Tanzania, Malawi, and Lesotho, utilizes a toll-free call center, an Android app under 10 MB, GPS-enabled geolocation, and offline data synchronization. Trained dispatchers apply WHO protocols to assess emergencies and dispatch the nearest available ambulance or community driver.

Driver payments are settled instantly via mobile money. Telebirr, Safaricom’s mobile-money platform developed in collaboration with Dashen Bank, has been identified as the likely channel for these transactions. This builds on the March 2025 MoH-Safaricom partnership that introduced cashless payments in health facilities, and aligns with the September 2025 rollout of electronic medical records in 130 facilities under Ethiopia’s Digital Health Strategy 2023-2032.

Real-time GPS routing would optimise response times in regions such as Oromia, but any digital dispatch system must first be validated under Article 15 of Proclamation 1362/2025. Personal health data will be governed by the 2024 Personal Data Protection Proclamation, which imposes data minimisation and consent principles and prohibits cross-border transfers without equivalent safeguards. Integration with the national community-health information system (eCHIS) and Telebirr is already underway; WHO began using Telebirr for fuel-management payments in September 2025, providing a tested template for reimbursing M-Mama drivers.

Initial financing will come from the Safaricom and Vodafone foundations, mirroring the USD 25 million that Vodafone has committed to M-Mama globally since 2014. A World Bank technical assistance package approved in February 2025 covers the costs of remote triage deployment. Still, long-term sustainability requires absorption into the Ministry of Health budget—currently 4.5% of GDP—and possibly performance-based financing for maternal health, a model found to be cost-effective in Ethiopia in 2024. 

Key regulatory requirements are actively being addressed for digital health initiatives in Ethiopia. The country's Personal Data Protection Proclamation (2023), along with new guidelines from the Ethiopian Data Protection Commission established during 2025, mandates that digital health platforms obtain local certification before processing Ethiopian health or location data. Safaricom has navigated this by securing Ministry of Health approval for its GPS dispatch module, building on its prior success with Telebirr's integration into the national eCHIS platform.

Hikmatu Bilali, Edited by Idriss Linge