8th AgriFin Learning Event
Theme: Enabling Rural Economy: Creating Lasting Impact for the Digital Ecosystem in Africa
8th Annual Learning Event
Case Studies
Session Title: Strategies and Pathways to Scaling Gender-inclusive Digital Agricultural Finance
Credit Pathways
Case 1:
Credit scoring is an important resource for risk appraisal in the issuance of digital loans to female and male farmers. To date, many of our partners have engaged in developing internal scorecards supported by data collected through their agribusinesses or alternative (non-traditional) data sets from collaborative partners. Despite this progress in expanding data sources, the uptake of digital agricultural loans has not increased in line with expected numbers. In comparison, digital consumer loans from financial institutions and other actors e.g. fintechs have had a much higher uptake and growth across sub-Saharan markets.
Exploration Questions:
- What are the main challenges facing proprietary credit scoring models and how can these be enhanced?
- How can AgriTechs and FSPs (and other sector partners) better partner to improve credit appraisal and provision of digital loans to women and male and youth farmers?
- Is AI a viable approach in developing dynamic credit scorecards to appraise agricultural risk?
- Which considerations must be made to ensure there is no bias against women and youth in scoring models? What are the risks?
- What is the role of policy, and regulation and how does it affect the use of alternative data and access to credit?
Case 2:
The cost of reaching, acquiring and serving female, male and youth farmers with loans remains disproportionately high, despite the opportunities presented by the digital economy. What are the barriers and gaps in understanding and capitalizing these opportunities? What do we need to consider to improve the provision of credit to SSPs (small-scale producers)?
Exploration Questions:
- What is limiting partnerships between financial institutions and AgriTechs? How can this be resolved taking into consideration contextual and gender inclusive approaches?
- Are shared agent models for onboarding farmers the solution? What is working and why?
- Are commercial banks the right partners to scale digital credit for female and male farmers? Should we be looking at other actors and hybrid business models in the ecosystem?
- How could commercial banks be incentivized to prioritize digital agricultural loans?
Case 3:
Offtakers/ Value chain actors are uniquely positioned to expand credit to female, male and youth small scale farmers owing to the sourcing/ supply chain benefits lending can bring to them and the operational efficiencies they can offer.
Exploration Questions
- What are the benefits of engaging with these organisations to provide credit to farmers, as opposed to mainstream financial institutions?
- Is financing (providing credit) to smallholder farmers by offtakers financially viable? What are the risks?
- What are the opportunities for financial institutions to take over loans from the balance sheets of offtakers? What are the perceived challenges in this approach?
- What kind of models would be most effective for these organisations to extend credit to female and male farmers?
- Are these offtakers equipped, or motivated enough to be inclusive in their approach e.g. consider women farmers in their offerings?
Insurance Pathways:
Case 4:
Digital Insurance remains a critical buffer for SSPs against agricultural losses, due to adverse weather and climate change, and other unexpected shocks. However, the uptake remains low, partly owing to low literacy levels (basic, digital and financial literacy), access to information, access to digital devices, cost, trust & transparency, and willingness and ability to pay by SSPs.
Exploration Questions:
- Which platforms and pathways are cost-effective and scalable for the dissemination of insurance literacy information among diverse SSPs and WSSPs in particular?
- What specific interventions need to be undertaken to improve insurance uptake among women and SHF?
- Is bundling a solution that can scale the uptake of crop and livestock insurance? What bundling solutions might work best?
Case 5:
While various solutions/products are available for crop and livestock insurance (e.g. weather index, yield based and multi-peril), what needs to be done to increase access and adoption of these solutions by SSPs.
Exploration Questions:
- What are the main barriers faced by insuretechs in delivering insurance products to SSPs? Share examples of how these have been addressed.
- What is the role of the public sector? Should agricultural SSP insurance be a public good in the face of climate change?
- Which bundles best suit insurance products? What bundling solutions might work best?
Case 6:
Livestock insurance has faced even lower adoption rates than crop insurance, especially for SSPs in ASALs. Low literacy rates, dispersed populations, insecurity, low disposable income and gendered socio-cultural issues have been blamed for this low uptake.
Exploration Questions:
- Which insurance models/products have the promise for scale and impact in the livestock sector? Why have they worked?
- What role can digital play if any to overcome the identified barriers? Are there examples of such interventions?
- How can women be targeted for uptake and usage of livestock insurance products?
- What is the role of the government in supporting the uptake of livestock insurance products?
- What are the approaches for effectively communicating the benefits of digital insurance to SSPs? (E.g., virtual and physical platforms, translated information, women’s informal social groups, barazas etc.)
Savings Pathways:
Case 7:
Informal and semi-formal vs formal savings trends: Village-based saving groups and SACCOs are working for SSPs and WSSPs, particularly building saving cultures in a context where there is little to save (Busara/AB research notes). These groups also advance loans to members and have high female participation (the participation rate of Table Banking in Kenya is 70% female) Conversely, formal deposit-taking institutions have cited a low uptake of savings accounts in this segment.
Exploration Questions:
- Is there a case for digitization/formalization of informal savings collectives? What has worked to transition from informal savings instruments to formal ones?
- What are the socio-cultural barriers to digitization/formalization of informal savings collectives? E.g. literacy levels and trust.
- How can digital solutions be leveraged to build a savings culture amongst SSPs? Which models are working currently? What barriers need to be considered?
- What barriers do small scale producers and particularly women, female youth, persons living with disabilities and the elderly face when trying to open and maintain savings accounts? How can we overcome those barriers?
- What are successful case studies of incentive programs that have increased savings account uptake in similar contexts in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC)?
- How can we tailor financial education to address the specific needs and challenges of small scale producers, and particularly women and other underserved groups?
Case 8:
Mutual Savings Case: Savings groups are crucial in providing financial support to women in East Africa. Despite the participation of over 10 million women in these groups, linkage to formal insurance has largely overlooked their nuanced needs. Our research finds that community risk-sharing mechanisms alongside these savings groups offer minimal assistance during ongoing and unexpected crises. This is due to insufficient funds and ad hoc contributions, sometimes resulting in more debt, uncertainty and closure of their businesses. Establishing an insurance mutual prioritizing women’s ownership and increasing decision-making opportunities will contribute to empowerment and self-reliance. This will build trust in insurance and provide sustainable long-term risk management solutions for women entrepreneurs.
Exploration questions:
- Ownership Structure:What strategies can we implement to ensure that women have true ownership in the insurance mutual, and how can we empower them to make financial decisions?
- Safeguarding the mutual:What measures can we put in place to protect the mutual from external interference to avoid challenges cooperatives face
- Sustainability and Growth:How can we ensure the long-term sustainability of the insurance mutual while expanding its operations, and how can the community be involved in this process?
- Product Development: What gender-inclusive frameworks can be designed to support ideation for innovative product development that increases access to, and usage of insurance product(s)?
Payments Pathways:
Case 9:
Digital payments are embraced in almost all economic sectors however, the agricultural sector has not fully adopted this mode of payment, preferring instead to deal in cash. This is for both payments for farm inputs and receiving payments for outputs.
Exploration Questions:
- What are the main barriers in digitizing agricultural value chains to enable digital payments for farm inputs and outputs? What approaches are being employed to address these barriers?
- What are the main reasons for low adoption of digital payments by small-scale producers (SSPs)? E.g. digital infrastructure, low literacy and access to digital devices.
- Are there country specific policy considerations to increase the volume of digital payments by SSPs?
- Apart from mobile money offered by MNOs, is there a business case for digital payments solutions offered by other actors, e.g. Agtechs (AFEX Cuddy etc.) Should these solutions be interoperable and what is the pathway to interoperability?
Case 10:
Evidence shows that access and uptake of digital financial products continues to reach fewer women than men. Women operating at the lower end of the agricultural value chain are less likely to access and take up these financial services. Moreover, different social segments of women face different cross-cutting barriers. For example female youth, female headed households, women living with disabilities, female internally displaced persons, and the elderly (the average age of female African farmers is 60yrs). These include social-cultural norms that compound low literacy levels, asset ownership and decision-making abilities that limit their active and equitable participation in agricultural activities.
Exploration Questions:
- What are best practice approaches for collecting gender disaggregated data and evidence to understand the context-specific needs and challenges experienced by women from different social segments? What are the challenges with consistently capturing gender disaggregated data and evidence?
- What models and approaches have been most effective to reach diverse women?
- What challenges do digital service providers experience when designing and implementing solutions for women? E.g. organizational gender capacity/training, resourcing to develop gender-sensitive research, design and implementation, community trust, designing for multiple gendered needs, and women in hard to reach regions.
Session Title: Pathways/Strategies to Scaling Digital Agricultural information services
Case 1:
While digital extensions remain the most viable and cost-effective pathway for advisory, many farmers have low digital literacy, lack willingness to pay, lack ability to pay, and inability to afford digital gadgets. On the other hand, traditional extension services have low agents to farmer ratio and are not able to deliver services to all women and SHF, Partners; FSPN, Producers Direct. Similarly, where digital advisory services are offered, there is a lack of standardization of content from different service providers. This has led to farmer fatigue. While partners and government institutions have good advisory content, digitization and sharing of these content remains elusive.
Exploration Questions: Table 1-questions 1-4, Table 2 Questions 5-8
- What are some of the solutions which could support women and smallholder farmers to access and adopt digital advisory services?
- What would be the best arrangement for digitization and (dissemination) standardization of digital advisory content among partners?
- Which business model would best work for a digital advisory platform / for sustainability when it is offered as a public good?
- In any case that the digital advisory services are offered as public goods, which bundle services can benefit the platform and add value to the farmers?
- Where digital advisory services are offered as a public good, while the content and systems are provided for by the private sector, who claims the ownership, IP, hosting among others? Which partnership arrangement and business model would work between government and private sector players to sustain such services?
- Which digital platform would best work with the farmers for DCSA? (Considering affordability, literacy, content type, etc.)
Case 2:
Low digital literacy and value proposition remains the biggest hindrance to scaling and sustainability of market platforms. While there is a need for human intervention between the technology and the SHF for improved adoption and use, the pathway has proved to be costly but effective. Partners: Kuza, Lersha, Coamana, Extension Africa, DigiFarm, Hello Tractor
Exploration Questions:
- How can we have effective human intervention between digital technology and women & SHF cost effectively?
- Overtime, what actions can partners take to reduce the dependency on human intervention, and recreate more
- What government policy changes to agricultural extension could improve the effectiveness of the sector?
- How can we effectively create synergies to lower administrative costs, especially agents acquisition?
- What measures can be taken to incentivize agents and farmers to adopt digital platforms?
Case 3:
While some agricultural markets like Kenya have a working digital payment system and marketplaces for other goods and services, the implementation of this strength in agriculture and for SHF remains elusive. This is due to the lack of a proper value proposition for the digital marketplace, low awareness, poor access to digital tools, seasonality of agricultural production, missing standard of measure for both quality and quantity, and a lack of verification of product before delivery. How can these problems be solved? Partners: Mshamba, Zowasel, FtMA
- What are the digital ecosystem interventions required?
- What are the partnership level interventions required?
- What are the smallholder farmer level interventions required?
- What product bundles should be paired with marketplace products to add value to farmers and drive the full potential of the digital platform?
Case 4:
Digital Climate Smart Agriculture remains one of the most important information, knowledge and technologies to be shared with SHF in supporting their decision making. Despite the proven benefits of CSA practices, adoption rates among smallholder farmers in many parts remain low. Challenges include limited awareness, lack of access to resources, and social/cultural resistance. Similarly, awareness is low despite government agencies having the mandate to provide advice and policy on capacity building, infrastructure and resources on how to handle different climatic situations. Partner: FtMA/KALRO/KenMet
Exploration Questions:
- Up until now CSA information provided to farmers is mainly weather information while leaving out pests and diseases, hailstones among others. How can we increase the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices among smallholder farmers in Africa? Consider barriers such as lack of information, financial constraints, and cultural attitudes. What role can technology, policy, and partnerships play in overcoming these barriers?
- What should the private sector and government agencies’ partnership for CSA content generation and dissemination look like?
- What process and method could help CSA product and services creators to identify SHF pain point and develop products which fit their needs?
- How can the government and private sector partner on dissemination of CSA?
- What other product and service bundles could be put together with CSA solutions to promote its adoption and use?
Case 5:
Access to finance is a significant hurdle for farmers looking to adopt CSA practices. Traditional financial institutions often consider smallholder farmers high-risk, leading to limited access to credit and insurance. Partner: Shamba Shield/CGIAR, Digifarm, Afex
Exploration Questions
- How can we design financial products that are accessible and affordable for smallholder farmers?
- What needs to be done at the ecosystem level to enable farmers, especially women farmers access financing for CSA initiatives?
Case 6:
Designing services that are both accessible and affordable for smallholder farmers necessitates a nuanced understanding of their unique needs and financial constraints. Effective models often employ tailored pricing strategies and flexible delivery mechanisms that align with the seasonal income patterns and resource availability of farmers. Striking a balance between affordability and value is crucial to ensure that services are seen as worthwhile investments, fostering long-term engagement.
Sustaining active use over time depends on the perceived value, ease of use, and tangible benefits of the service. Continuous engagement can be encouraged through ongoing support, regular updates, and adaptive features that respond to changing agricultural conditions or farmer feedback. These elements help build trust and loyalty, integrating the services into the daily practices of smallholder farmers. However, it is also essential to explore other potential strategies that may not have been fully considered or implemented. Partner: Sprout, Farm2Feed,One Acre Fund, Fresh Crop
Exploration Questions:
- Could innovative technologies, alternative engagement models, or community-driven approaches further enhance active use?
- Which business model would best work to bring on new users.
Case 7:
Partners and government institutions possess valuable resources and content aimed at improving agricultural practices, weather advisory services, and market information that can be used among small-scale farmers and pastoralists. However, the challenge of digitizing and effectively sharing this content has remained a significant barrier to its widespread use. Even though these tools and services are available, the lack of standardized content and resources across different organizations and providers has led to inconsistencies, causing farmer fatigue and reducing the impact of these initiatives.
Partners: Sprout, KALRO, ATI, SPARC
Exploration Questions:
- What are some perceived challenges and obstacles partners need to address and overcome to standardize and open these resources?
- What role can partner, and government institutions play to enhance the impact of their advisory content, leading to better outcomes for small-scale farmers.
- How can partners and government institutions further digitize and standardize advisory content to effectively share it and reduce farmer fatigue caused by inconsistent digital advisory services?
- What strategies can be employed to promote adoption of digital platforms for arid and pastoral communities?
Case 8:
Global public good products have the potential to be key drivers in accelerating the digital ecosystem for agricultural transformation. By offering scalable, universally accessible solutions, these products can bridge critical gaps in knowledge, technology, and infrastructure that often hinder progress in agriculture, particularly in developing regions. For instance, open-source platforms that provide localized weather data, soil health insights, and pest management advice can empower millions of small-scale farmers with the information needed to make better decisions. Additionally, global public goods can catalyze collaboration among governments, NGOs, and private sector players, fostering an ecosystem where innovations are shared, adapted, and scaled across regions. Partners- ATI, KALRO, KMET
Exploration Questions:
- How can digital public goods, along with strategic partnerships, accelerate the development and support of the digital ecosystem needed for agricultural transformation?
- How can digital public goods help reduce the costs associated with entering digital markets for small businesses and startups?
- In what ways do digital public goods enable local entrepreneurs to compete in the digital economy
- What roles do digital public goods play in ensuring interoperability between different digital platforms and services?
- How do digital public goods accelerate the development of digital ecosystems?
- What challenges might arise when integrating digital public goods into existing digital markets?
- How can digital public goods improve access to climate data for underserved communities?
- What challenges exist in achieving interoperability between different climate service platforms, and how can digital public goods help overcome these?
- In what ways can digital public goods reduce the costs associated with deploying digital climate services in low-resource settings?
- What strategies can be used to scale digital public goods for climate services to reach a global audience?
Case 9:
Suppliers of mechanized equipment, logistical providers, and processors are regarded as critical change agents to improve market access to inputs and offtake. These innovators must address supply and demand factors as quickly as possible. Partners need to test things but focus on rolling out joint products only that can scale in a financially viable way. Logistics and mechanization partners must always provide a “carrot” to attract tractor and truck owners to their platforms since vendors will come for the tool and stay for the marketplace to maintain equilibrium in the market. If farmers get excited about the service but find no trucks or tractors, they will leave the marketplace. Logistics and mechanization innovators need to organize farmers in advance to reduce frustration and remove uncertainty from the marketplace. Innovators need to keep reinventing to ensure the value proposition of their service offering to farmers. Partners: Hello Tractor, Lersha, Twiga
Exploration questions:
- How can partnerships particularly with larger digital platforms impact the growth of logistics and mechanization?
- What are the incentive measures for farmers and agents to utilize logistics and mechanization services?
- Are there strategies that innovators can leverage to lower operation costs?
Case 10:
While evidence shows that the impact of digital platforms has a positive impact on the productivity, income and resilience of women smallholder farmers, optimal benefit is drawn from bundles of products and services. The interdependency and linkage of the services, provides no room for isolated products and services for women. The private sector has struggled with quantifying the long-term value proposition for gender mainstreaming in their businesses vs short term economics. Partners: Widef, Lersha
Exploration questions
- What innovative strategies can be developed for women to get more access to digital tools?
- How can private sector be incentivized to integrate gender mainstreaming in their businesses?
