Publication database

As we collectively work towards achieving the SDGs by 2030, this volume of the Sahel Quarterly presents practical solutions by exploring ten critical trends in the African agriculture and food landscapes that stakeholders must prioritize in the next decade. From the growing number of agri-tech start-ups to the dramatic increases in the penetration of mobile technology across the continent, reliance on big data, and the growing demand for equality and inclusion at all levels, it is evident that the continent is at a tipping point. 

This case study shares lessons learned from a capacity building project with farmer organisations in Kenya and Rwanda. The project stems from a five-year partnership program between MasterCard Foundation and a financial institution in Kenya which targeted agricultural value chain actors to offer mobile-based financial inclusion and information to smallholder farmers. 

Commendable progress has been made across many parts of Africa over the past years to increase agricultural productivity, reduce hunger, malnutrition, and poverty, create new employment opportunities for young people and improve the livelihoods of rural communities. Yet, demographic change, urbanization, shifting diets and climatic changes mean that pressure is growing on food systems to make more food and more varied and nutritious food available and accessible.  How African countries position themselves to harness and deploy digital technologies will determine the future competitiveness of African agriculture and its contribution to African economies.

The current report — Byte by byte: policy innovation for transforming Africa’s food system with digital technologies— summarizes the key findings of a systematic analysis of what seven African countries at the forefront of progress on digitalization of the agriculture sector have done right. It analyzes which institutional and policy innovations were implemented and which actions by the private sector and agtech start-ups were taken to increase the development and use of digital tools and services in the agriculture value chain. The objective of this report is to identify interventions that work and benefit farmers and other actors in the value chain and recommend options for policy and program innovation that allow countries to develop a digitalization ecosystem in which digital technologies and services can be developed and used to foster growth and competitiveness in Africa’s agriculture value chains. 

Fintech in Africa is evolving quickly. Today, there are hundreds of fintech startups across the continent – but how has the sector changed in recent years? This report takes a look at the next generation of fintech in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Meeting the mobile money needs of the unbanked in emerging markets is a vast opportunity. However, firms seeking to tap the mobile money opportunity are faced with a landscape of unknowns. How will the mobile money value chain work in practice? What do we know about consumer behavior? To answer some of these questions, and understand how digital payments providers can capture the opportunities while benefiting those without access to financial services, this report looks at the actual financial data of a sample of mobile money providers, all on a blinded basis. 

P2P business models like Airbnb or Uber provide an organised way to collectively share certain resources. Could similar solutions reduce the barriers to sharing of the limited existing sanitation facilities in low income countries? During 2016 and 2017 Inclusive Business Sweden and Aqua for All, supported by Unilever and funded by Transform, carried out a project named ‘Peer-to-peer Business Models to Meet Sanitation Needs’ to explore this possibility.