Mobile Solutions and Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

ICT Enhances Effectiveness, Efficiency and Reach of Assistance

Innovations in information and communication technology (ICT) are revolutionizing the way organizations around the globe approach economic development challenges.

A powerful tool in the ICT for development strategy is mobile technology and the opportunities it provides for increasing the impact of development efforts. Mobile technology can provide information, resources and financial services to the poor cheaply and powerfully. They have also brought a healthy new sense of inclusion and modernity to traditionally underserved populations

ACDI/VOCA incorporates these technologies into our development projects to expand their reach and efficacy while conserving limited donor funds.

For more information please check out our World Report on Building Connections through Technology.

Mobile Strategy

Rural communities make up the fastest-growing market for mobile applications. The adoption rate for mobile phones has far outstripped that of personal computers, especially in developing countries where the mobile phone has emerged the de facto personal computer for people who live at the base of the pyramid.

In short, cell phones are transforming the way people at all economic levels do business.

Mobile Finance

"Mobile finance will do for the base of the pyramid what commercial banking did for the industrial revolution."
—Lee Babcock, ACDI/VOCA technical managing director
Dec 6, 2011 Technology Salon

ACDI/VOCA staff is finding innovative ways to bridge the gap between rural demand for payments and financial services with the financial institution, telecommunications and technological capacity to provide payment services, savings and credit opportunities.

We believe that the agricultural sector is the key to unlocking the economic power of mobile finance in rural communities.

Though it is less than a decade old, mobile finance is proving to be a cost-effective and scalable tool to allow the poor to make payments without spending undue time and resources and incurring risks traveling long distances with cash.

Mobile finance holds particular promise for agricultural value chain development to help smallholder farmers and service providers benefit from time and money saved, greater safety and security, better recordkeeping and a more businesslike approach to farming.

We welcome the opportunity to collaborate on mobile finance applications in our work to extend effective mobile finance platforms to this important market. Read more about our approach to bringing financial services to the unbanked.

Mobile Data

How do you cut the cost of data collection, ensure its quality control and report data from the field real time? We’re working on an app for that, and piloting promising applications.

In Haiti, through our USAID-funded Multi-Year Assistance Program, ACDI/VOCA worked with the Humanitarian Free Open Source Software Project at Trinity College to develop a smartphone application that allowed our field teams to update records during food distributions and register new beneficiaries in the remote areas where health services are provided. Field staff sent the data they collect—for example, the name and health status of a child or mother—by SMS to a server maintained by ACDI/VOCA. This system increased data accuracy and significantly reduced the time and effort spent updating records.

Our project in Malawi uses the Esoko platform, which sends market prices directly to farmers’ phones, providing them with the information to demand fair prices from buyers. The system helps farmers earn higher prices by providing dates, prices and locations for selling their crops to interested buyers. The project is also exploring using Esoko’s platform to provide weather updates and agricultural tips to farmers.

In India, with funding from USAID and market research conducted by Accenture, ACDI/VOCA partnered with Infosys to strengthen the emerging organized retail sector and link it to smallholder farmers. We used FreshConnect, a software product owned by Infosys, to increase farmers’ incomes by organizing and integrating them into the fresh fruits and vegetables supply chain.

Under the Sunhara India project, Agribusiness Systems International channeled lessons learned from the FreshConnect model to develop a practical ICT application that farmers can use on a wide scale. Sunhara partnered with Khushali Krishi Kendra, an agribusiness with more than 80 agricultural supply stores, to develop an SMS- and voice mail-based product to deliver local, up-to-date and accurate extension and market information to more than 150,000 farmers.

We’re also helping to lead research in the best new ways to integrate ICT and mobile finance into agricultural value chains. Read what we found in our contributions to USAID’s FACET (Fostering Agriculture Competitiveness Employing Information Communication Technologies) project.

PDF version (652, KB).

For more information please check out our World Report on Building Connections through Technology.