Agriculture

Scaling up Responsible Digital Payments in the Rwandan Tea Sector

This study lays the foundation for incorporating United Nations Principles for Responsible Digital Payments in the Rwandan tea sector, with the goal of increasing efficiency and improving farmers’ living incomes.

West Africa launches new payments digitization agenda

Media release from the Better Than Cash Alliance, the World Bank and the National Agency of Statistics and Demography of Senegal (ANSD)

BEYOND CHOCOLATE: What agribusiness can learn from Ghana’s cocoa sector shift to digital payments

FAO pledges to scale up direct use of digital financial transfers

Director-General says joining the Better Than Cash Alliance is part of stimulating more innovation and financial inclusion for smallholders

FAO pledges to scale up direct use of digital financial transfers

The Cost of Cash to Ghana’s Cocoa Sector

Digital payments can help make the sector more efficient, transparent, and secure for companies and people alike.

How mobile phones improve market efficiency?

This paper finds that mobile phone network rollout, that allowed traders better access to market information, led to a 10-13% reduction in price dispersion of maize crop.

Digital Economy Blueprint: Kenya

Kenya’s “Digital Economy Blueprint” provides a conceptual framework for setting up a successful digital economy in the country. The document identifies and explores five pillars of focus and is relevant for our work not just in Kenya but across Africa.

Improving financial inclusion through data for smallholder farmers in Kenya

As mobile-based digital agricultural solutions take hold in Kenya, there is a great opportunity to use data for improving financial inclusion of smallholder farmers.

Distributed Ledger Technology and Digital Identity: Prospects and Pitfalls Ahead

Blockchain Series: Blog 4…

Distributing Production: Can Distributed Ledgers Fuel a New Wave of Supply-Chain Innovation?

Blockchain Series: Blog 5…

Cash usage behaviour and its implication for digital payments: A case of Ghana and Nigeria's smallholder cassava value chain

Education programs and awareness campaigns can help improve mobile money usage among smallholder cassava farmers in Nigeria and Ghana. Better agent network and incentives may help too. Read …

Using digital tools to grow africulture and financial inclusion in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has a sole mobile network provider and a banking sector that is closed to foreign ownership. Does that make it easy for the government to take a rural-first approach to digitization? Learn about it more in this USAIDFeed The Future brief that also mentions the Alliance.

2018 highlights!

Here are highlights on how our global partnership ignited progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals through shifting to digital payments.

Middle East and North Africa Economic Monitor, October 2018: A New Economy in Middle East and North Africa

This report lays out the principles for a new digital economy for MENA that embraces innovation and entrepreneurship, youth and women economic empowerment, rekindling the role of State, etc.

Next Steps for the Digital Revolution in Africa: Inclusive Growth and Job Creation Lessons from Kenya

This paper provides examples of how digitization in Kenya has supported the economy via a retail electronic payments system, financial inclusion, increased financial sector vibrancy, and pushed GDP growth with it.

Accelerating the SDGs: How Digital Finance Can Ignite Faster Progress Toward the Global Goals

As world leaders met at the U.N. General Assembly in New York last week, many discussions focused on how to ignite greater progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Increasin…

Sierra Leone: Digitizing revenue collection is the next frontier

By Alfred Akibo-Betts and Tenzin Keyzom Massally …