VEON Case Study: Driving Digital Opportunity through Local Partnerships
The Challenge
The digital divide manifests differently across the markets VEON serves. Women and girls may lack access to mentors, digital skills or pathways into technology careers and leadership. Young people outside major urban centres often face limited opportunities to develop job-ready skills and professional networks. People with disabilities frequently encounter barriers in accessing facilities, digital services and transportation. Rural communities may have limited access to connectivity and financial services, while the war in Ukraine has intensified challenges related to healthcare, employment and independent mobility.
As a mobile network operator serving communities across South Asia, Central Asia and Ukraine, VEON recognised that these barriers could not be addressed through a single, centrally designed programme. The challenge was to create locally relevant solutions that reflected the specific needs and realities of each market while advancing a shared commitment to inclusion.
Approach
VEON’s 360-degree Diversity, Equity and Inclusion vision, “Creating an inclusive world for all – inside and beyond VEON”, is built around four pillars: People, Products, Partners and Communities.
Beyond the workplace, this approach focuses on expanding access to opportunity through inclusive products and services, ecosystem partnerships and community programmes. Across its markets, VEON’s operating companies apply a common principle: identify a local barrier, work with trusted partners and use technology, skills development or accessible services to create practical pathways to opportunity.
Rather than implementing a standardised programme across all markets, VEON’s local operating companies are empowered to design initiatives tailored to local needs while contributing to a shared objective of digital inclusion.
Implementation
VEON’s local operating companies delivered a range of market-specific initiatives aligned with this approach:
Bangladesh: Expanding STEM Opportunities and Accessibility
Banglalink launched Womentor: a mentoring programme designed to support young women pursuing careers in STEM. The programme combines mentoring, networking and career development opportunities while also advancing disability-inclusive access through improvements to facilities and awareness campaigns.
Pakistan: Building Digital and Financial Inclusion
Jazz and JazzCash focused on strengthening digital and financial participation, particularly for women and underserved rural communities. Programmes included digital literacy, financial inclusion initiatives, leadership development and efforts to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan: Creating Technology Career Pathways
Beeline Kazakhstan delivered bootcamps and digital-skills programmes aimed at helping young people access technology careers. In Uzbekistan, initiatives such as BeeGeneration, ProCareer and Women in STEM Reskilling connected participants with training, internships and employment opportunities.
In addition, a regional women’s mentoring programme created opportunities for women across Central Asia to develop professional skills, build networks and access career guidance.
Ukraine: Supporting Healthcare, Employment and Mobility
In Ukraine, Kyivstar and Uklon addressed challenges intensified by the war through initiatives focused on healthcare access, employment and independent mobility. Programmes supported children’s healthcare services, fundraising initiatives and accessible transport solutions for wheelchair users and other individuals with mobility needs.
Partnerships
A defining feature of VEON’s approach is its reliance on trusted local partnerships. Initiatives were developed in collaboration with educational institutions, international organisations, disability inclusion specialists, community organisations and humanitarian partners.
Partners included organisations such as UN Women, ITU, GSMA, USAID, the Universal Service Fund, LUMS, AmCham, universities, digital-skills hubs, Proyash Institute of Special Education, dobro.ua, UNBROKEN and Uklon’s mobility partners.
Programmes were designed with and for the communities they aimed to serve, including female students and professionals, young people, jobseekers with limited work experience, rural women, people with disabilities, wheelchair users, families and healthcare providers. Participants contributed through mentoring, workshops, pilots, alumni networks, community projects and direct service use.
Outcomes
Across reporting periods, VEON’s initiatives expanded access to digital skills, financial participation, STEM careers, inclusive employment opportunities, leadership networks, healthcare services and accessible mobility.
Reported outcomes include:
| Area | Outcome |
| Digital and financial inclusion | More than 150,000 women reached across 157 villages in Pakistan |
| EMPOWER programme | 274 women and 27 men completed the programme, creating an alumni network of approximately 130 participants |
| Women in STEM and accessibility | More than 400 applications to Womentor, 35 mentees supported by 9 mentors, over 25 facilities improved and more than 500,000 people reached through awareness activities |
| Technology career pathways | BeeGeneration received 2,000 applications, placed 250 interns and achieved an 85% employment rate |
| Skills development | Beeline Kazakhstan bootcamps and workshops reached more than 400 participants |
| Children’s healthcare | More than UAH 50 million raised to support 67 children’s hospitals |
| Accessible mobility | 33,032 Uklon Inclusive rides completed for 4,330 unique rider |
NB: Figures are drawn from different reporting cycles and are not additive.
Key Success Factors
Several common factors underpin the success of these initiatives:
- A clearly identified local barrier or need.
- Strong partnerships with trusted academic, industry, community and humanitarian organisations.
- Practical pathways from learning and access to tangible opportunities.
- Delivery models that extend beyond major urban centres.
- Technology used as an enabler of inclusion rather than an end in itself.
- Clear measurement of beneficiary and service outcomes.
- Human support, including mentors, educators, healthcare professionals and trained service providers, alongside digital solutions.
Lessons Learnt
VEON’s experience demonstrates that digital inclusion challenges differ significantly from one market to another and cannot be addressed through a single delivery model.
Programmes often encounter constraints related to scale, accessibility infrastructure, rural reach and, in some markets, the operational challenges associated with conflict-affected environments. Demand for mentoring and internship opportunities can also exceed available capacity. In addition, outcomes are measured differently across programmes and markets, making comparison challenging.
Future initiatives should define clear progression pathways, such as transitions from training to employment or from service access to sustained engagement, while establishing a core set of comparable indicators alongside locally relevant measures.
Recommendations for Replication
Organisations seeking to replicate this approach should:
- Start with the specific barrier experienced by the target community.
- Co-design solutions with trusted local partners.
- Remove practical barriers to participation.
- Combine digital access with mentorship, coaching or specialist support.
- Connect training programmes to clear next steps, such as internships, employment opportunities or community projects.
- Embed inclusion within existing platforms and services where possible to enable scale.
- Measure both reach and long-term outcomes.
Conclusion
VEON’s experience shows that expanding digital opportunity requires more than connectivity alone. By combining local insight, trusted partnerships and technology-enabled solutions, its operating companies have created practical pathways to education, employment, financial participation, healthcare and mobility.
While the barriers vary across markets, the underlying model remains consistent: identify local needs, build with trusted partners and measure meaningful outcomes. This approach provides a scalable framework for advancing digital inclusion while ensuring that programmes remain responsive to the communities they are designed to serve.
