Executive Summary

Digital inclusion has the potential to support women entrepreneurs' economic empowerment in Kassala State, but the relationship is conditional rather than automatic. Many women own phones, which is the most important digital tool they have access to. Yet only around 10% use them for business purposes. Effective economic use depends on a set of ‘conversion factors’ such as practical digital skills, affordability, reliability of electricity and connectivity, trust and safety, and supportive institutional intermediaries like women's centers, NGOs, community leaders, and local business associations.

The evidence indicates that education/literacy and household wealth are more consistently associated with empowerment attitudes than digital access indicators. Women frequently report having phones that they use mainly for basic communication, while high data costs, unreliable services, limited skills, and social concerns restrict more advanced use. Where digital tools are used for business, low-barrier platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook are most common, reflecting women's preference for familiar, low-risk tools that fit existing business practices.

This brief shows that interventions prioritizing device ownership or connectivity without addressing skills, affordability, trust, and local support systems are unlikely to improve women's economic outcomes. A more effective approach requires a shift from primarily expanding access to expanding meaningful, safe, and sustained use of digital tools for enterprise activities.

Background and Evidence

The context

Women entrepreneurs in Kassala often operate in the informal economy within an environment marked by poverty, fragility, displacement-related challenges, and disruptions in services. These conditions limit access to markets, finance, and skills, and weakens opportunities for small businesses to grow. In this context, our study approaches digital inclusion as a multidimensional concept that includes access to digital tools and the ability to use them effectively and safely for economic and social activities such as marketing, customer communication, order management, payments, and network-building.

Evidence highlights

The study reveals a persistent gap between owning digital tools and deriving economic benefit from them. Only around 10% of women in Kassala use digital tools for business, despite higher rates of phone ownership. Education/literacy and household wealth are stronger predictors of empowerment attitudes than access to phones or internet alone. WhatsApp and Facebook dominate feasible business use under current conditions, as women prefer platforms that are familiar, affordable, and socially acceptable.

Quantitative analysis shows substantial variation in empowerment attitudes among women in Kassala State, reflecting persistent normative and agency-related constraints. Education/literacy and household wealth are consistently associated with higher levels of empowerment, while digital access indicators do not emerge as strong or consistent predictors. These findings underscore that digital inclusion initiatives must take into account the broader socio-economic conditions that shape women's use of digital tools.

Qualitative evidence adds depth to this picture. Women commonly report "ownership without use," with phones used mainly for calls or messaging. Several interconnected barriers reinforce this limited use: high data costs (often exceeding daily earnings), unreliable electricity and connectivity (especially outside Kassala city), limited skills, and concerns about reputation, safety, and public visibility. Even when women do use digital tools for business purposes, they tend to rely on low-risk, familiar platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook rather than more complex tools or formal digital financial services.

In Kassala, this gap is widened by the interaction of individual skills, household dynamics, and local system constraints. Women's economic empowerment depends on how digital access interacts with key conversion factors: skills and literacy, household support and time availability, electricity and network reliability, affordability of services, and the presence of trusted intermediaries, such as women's centers, local NGOs, business associations, and community leaders, who can provide training, troubleshooting, and safe learning spaces. Without addressing these constraints collectively, digital inclusion initiatives risk benefiting only a small subset of women while leaving underlying inequalities unchanged.

The Policy Problem and Objective

The central policy challenge is this persistent gap between access and use. Evidence from this study shows that access-focused approaches – prioritizing device ownership or connectivity – are insufficient in the absence of enabling conditions. The problem is not simply a lack of phones or network coverage, but rather the absence of the practical conditions that allow women to translate ownership into sustained commercial activity.

The policy objective is therefore to improve women entrepreneurs' ability to translate digital access into tangible economic outcomes in Kassala State by increasing safe and sustained commercial use of digital technologies, reducing infrastructure- and cost-related constraints, and strengthening local institutional intermediation.

This requires moving beyond measuring phone ownership or internet access, and instead focusing on meaningful use: tracking whether women are actually using digital tools for marketing, customer management, receiving orders, simple recordkeeping, and payments where feasible.

Policy Recommendations

Shift to ‘meaningful use’ as the success metric

Efforts to promote digital inclusion for women entrepreneurs in Kassala must focus on meaningful use, not just simple access. Programmes should track whether women perform business tasks online, such as marketing, receiving orders, and simple recordkeeping, rather than measuring phone ownership/connectivity indicators alone. This shift requires donors, NGOs, telecom actors, and government agencies to align their monitoring systems and programme designs around practical, observable outcomes.

Build practical, business-linked capacities (not generic training)

To increase meaningful use, women need hands-on, business-linked digital skills delivered through trusted intermediaries. Training should be tied to real commercial tasks like product photography, writing descriptions, managing responses, pricing, delivery, and privacy protection. Women’s centres, local NGOs, and community leaders play a crucial role as safe, socially accepted spaces where women can learn without reputational risk. Peer-to-peer support and women-only sessionscan help normalize digital work work and address social concerns around visibility and posting.

An ‘affordable access’ package: data/devices/small energy solutions

Economic use also depends on affordable and reliable access. High data costs, poor connectivity, and inconsistent electricity remain major barriers. Telecom providers should offer low-cost packages for business use via the most common platforms (such as WhatsApp and Facebook), aligned with income realities. Local authorities and NGOs can complement this by supporting small charging/energy solutions in markets or through community centers. Additionally, microfinance institutions should provide savings and credit mechanisms that enable women to purchase suitable phones and finance working capital, delivered in partnership with organisations women already trust.

Sustainable local support points (institutional intermediation)

Continuous support is key to unlocking the business potential. Establishing and strengthening ‘digital support points for women’s entrepreneurship’ within women’s centers, markets, and local incubators can ensure ongoing practical guidance with account setup, privacy settings, content templates, and troubleshooting. Such support points also reduce trust gaps and ease access to knowledge.

Trust, safety, and social acceptability

Conditions for women entrepreneurs vary significantly, for example between urban, peri-urban, and rural areas, and the use of digital tools also vary by activity type, age, and educational level. It is crucial that interventions are sensitive to both geographic and social differences. Programmes should therefore integrate modules on digital safety, while adopting a phased approach: start with the locally most feasible solutions, then expand gradually as infrastructure and social acceptability improve. Donors and development partners should support coordinated, multi-actor approaches that address skills, costs, infrastructure, and trust simultaneously.

Conclusion

Women's use of digital tools for business purposes depends on multiple interacting factors that extend far beyond device ownership or network coverage. Meaningful digital inclusion requires simultaneous attention to practical skills, affordability, infrastructure reliability, trust and safety, and supportive institutional intermediaries. Any interventions must recognize that this is not simply about access to the tools themselves, but about creating the enabling conditions that allow women to translate access into sustained economic outcomes.

Programs must also address the risks associated with women's public visibility in conservative settings, requiring confidentiality safeguards and lower-risk alternatives to public posting. Equally important is avoiding one-size-fits-all solutions, as barriers differ across urban, peri-urban, and rural areas. Equity considerations must guide targeting to ensure interventions reach the most marginalized women, not only those already advantaged.

By shifting focus from access metrics to meaningful use, building practical business-linked capacities, ensuring affordability and reliability, strengthening local support systems, and tailoring interventions to local contexts, stakeholders can move beyond rhetoric toward interventions that genuinely expand economic opportunities and resilience for women entrepreneurs in Kassala State.