The United Nations Foundation has released a report that charts its developmental collaboration with Vodafone. 

Called Mobilizing Development, the report looks back at five years of collaboration between the UN Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation, and offers a number of best practices, lessons learned, and on-the-ground stories and interviews. 

The report highlights shifts in public-private partnerships in the use of technology for world development, and says that mobile technology can drive such issues as health, humanitarian response, and development work. 

“The foundations programs and research leveraged the tremendous growth in the use of mobile technology that has put powerful computers in the pockets of many in even the most marginalised populations, and opened new, two-way communications channels that are informing and reiterating the way technology is used as part of development and aid,” says the report. 

Kathy Calvin, CEO of the UN Foundation, says: “Our work with the Vodafone Foundation has helped lead the way in connecting mobile technology with the global health and humanitarian relief communities. Weve got the technology in our hands to strengthen health systems and improve disaster response. Partnerships like this one prove what can be done to accelerate innovation that can mean the difference between life and death, health or sickness for millions of people around the world.”

The report marks the end of the initial five-year, £15m program. Vodafone Foundation director Andrew Dunnett says: “Partnering with the UN, through the UN Foundation, enabled us to take technology for good ideas to scale. Our investments in the use of technology were designed to support the UNs global health and humanitarian work, and efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals.”

You can download the report here. An interactive version of the report is available here.