Publication database

This paper provides examples of how 2SCALE tackled youth inclusion in its partnerships. 2SCALE has been experimenting with various options to support young producers and entrepreneurs in the agribusiness sector. Making agriculture interesting to youth requires making it attractive and remunerative by having access to land, finance and technologies in order to modernise. Besides production another alternative for youth inclusion was explored: specialised service delivery to value chain actors.

The publication reports that the ability of sub-Saharan Africa’s economies to generate enough jobs for its young and growing population rests on the successful implementation of urgent reforms to boost productivity.

This brief on data looks at Agricare, a Ghanaian-owned animal feed producer. The publication shares practical guidance on how to use customer centricity to meet data collection needs for both business and social performance measurement. Researchers applied the Lean Data approach, to show that at its core, learning about impact is grounded in a simple activity: listening to open and unbiased feedback from customers.

This publication outlines how the SDGs offer a compelling growth strategy for African business, pointing to an economic prize of at least US$1.1 trillion by 2030 for the African private sector and the potential to create 85 million new jobs. The report highlights opportunities in four sectors: food and agriculture, energy, health and cities.

This case study reports on how to build an inclusive digital payments ecosystem in Ghana. It focuses on the current state of transition to digital payments, the necessary policy support and outlines the a possible trajectory of the shift.

Contract farming (CF) agreements are presently being restructured to form part of more complex Inclusive Business (IB) set-ups. Additional instruments, alongside CF, are implemented to overcome the challenges of CF and to adapt to the policy environment in which the different stakeholders operate. This paper develops a theoretical framework that gives insight into how these complex entities are structured and operate in a developing country context. It finds that a high dependence by the offtaker in the first case study stimulates a higher level of commitment and investment by this stakeholder in the contract arrangement. In turn, this increases the asset specificity aspect, which then requires safeguards to ensure the smallholders adhere to the contractual agreement. A higher dependency in this particular study also resulted in a higher number of smallholders being engaged in the contract, requiring mechanisms to efficiently monitor and coordinate them.

The learning paper examines the impact that agribusinesses funded by Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) have had on the creation of opportunities for decent work. Decent work is at the centre of the development agenda –  Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 commits the development community to providing decent work and economic growth.

This report provides analysis and key findings on the set-up and implementation of the mAgri mNutrion Initiative by GSMA. It provides insights to the design and impact of the services, with key considerations for existing service providers or those launching a new service. It also provide six case studies for a comprehensive snapshot of each service.

This report presents findings and best practices from idh's innovating partners with regards to empowering farmers through service delivery, while generating sustainable returns to their businesses. Learn more about their models’ drivers of farmer resilience, cost reduction and financial sustainability.  And get inspired, by service models helping millions of smallholder farmers out of poverty, in often remote areas and developing economies around the globe.

Recent studies have suggested that open data policies could deliver significant economic benefits for both developed and developing countries. The African Development Bank has spearheaded the promotion and facilitation of open data policies in Africa. In 2012, when the implementation of the open data approach was still in its infancy in many countries, the Statistics Department of the African Development Bank launched the Africa Information Highway (AIH) initiative. This provided a data publishing platform for all its 54 African regional member countries. This paper was commissioned as a subsequent stage of this work.