GSMA calls on the telecom stakeholders in Africa to implement child online protection through policy influences, partnerships and enhanced digital literacy.

The GSMA has issued a new white paper that calls on telecom stakeholders to focus on child online protection in Africa. The report itself is titled Enhancing Child Online Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa; it is based on the debates on hand at the MWC 2025 in Barcelona and is in line with both the child rights initiatives committed to by GSMA and the United Nations Childhood Fund (UNICEF) in 2019.

The telecoms sector (operators, the regulators and civil society) is challenged to apply youth-focused policies and enhance digital literacy levels among children, their parents and teachers. The report includes the results of the IPSOS research undertaken on behalf of MTN Group and the opinion of 19-year-old youth activist Jemima Kasongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Angela Wamola, GSMA head of Sub-Saharan Africa stressed the collective role of the telecoms sector in creating a safer digital environment: "By uniting our efforts, we can make sure that the digital environment is a source of opportunity, rather than danger, to the children of Africa."

The white paper suggests the reinforcement of the national frameworks according to the African Union's Child Online Safety and Empowerment Strategy and demands public-private partnerships to scale the safety tools and services. As half of the entire population of Africa is aged below 18, the GSMA has stated that telecommunications firms can best safeguard young populations on the Internet as well as provide an opportunity to promote leadership in the respective sector in the future.

UNICEF also repeated the significance of this initiative describing it as human capital being invested. The report has a goal of establishing a new level of telecom-based child protection policies in the continent.