Making Digital Finance Work for Women in the MENA Region: 8 Lessons from the Field

  • Partner.: Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF), DAI, UK Department for International Development (DFID)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: April 2020

This Practitioner Learning Brief builds on MarketShare Associates' work supporting the Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) to stimulate increased women’s economic empowerment through a market systems approach. The Brief explores opportunities and challenges of Digital Financial Services (DFS) and highlights eight lessons from 14 case studies on how to design and implement interventions that can pave the way for women’s digital financial empowerment across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and more widely. This Brief aims to encourage others to test and scale innovative approaches to making digital finance work better for women’s empowerment.

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NTF4Ag: Emerging Lessons and New Frontiers – INNOVATE Final Synthesis Report

  • Partner.: Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: April 2020

The INNOVATE Final Synthesis Report, produced with support from MarketShare Associates, brings together key results, insights and lessons from the research conducted by MEDA INNOVATE and its partners from 2017-2020, with the goal of learning and documenting experiences of non-traditional finance for catalyzing smallholder agricultural innovation adoption.

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Digital Platforms and Customer Centricity: Fostering Adoption and Sustained Use of AgTech Solutions

  • Partner.: Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: March 2020

As part of INNOVATE, a three-year initiative assessing the potential of non-traditional finance to enable adoption of smallholder agricultural innovations in South Asia, South America and East Africa, MEDA and MarketShare Associates produced a learning paper examining the role of digital platforms and the importance of customer and user experiences to reach and serve smallholder farmers. Through a review of the literature and in-depth interviews with firms leading the development of digital platforms for smallholders and relevant ecosystem players, this paper examines lessons learned for improving customer experiences and fostering increased uptake and sustained use of AgTech innovations.

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Mobile Money and PAYG Innovation to Scale AgTech Adoption in Smallholder Value Chains

  • Partner.: Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
  • Publication Type: Brief
  • Date: February 2020

MarketShare Associates was engaged as MEDA’s INNOVATE learning partner to produce a series of briefs highlighting key results and learnings from its research portfolio assessing the potential of non-traditional finance to stimulate agricultural innovation adoption among smallholder farmers in South Asia, South America and East Africa. This brief focuses on experiences and lessons learned from the pilot project implemented by I-DEV International, “Mobile Money & Pay-AsYou-Go (PAYG) Innovation to Scale: AgTech Adoption in the Smallholder Value Chain”.

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The Chithumba Model: Combining Pre-Harvest Financing, GAP Training, and Access to Markets for Smallholder Farmers in Malawi

  • Partner.: Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
  • Publication Type: Brief
  • Date: December 2019

MarketShare Associates (MSA) was engaged as MEDA’s learning partner on INNOVATE and produced a series of briefs highlighting key results and insights from the research portfolio assessing the potential of non-traditional finance to stimulate agricultural innovation adoption among smallholder farmers in South Asia, South America and East Africa. MSA produced this brief summarizing findings from the case study conducted by Agronomy Technology Limited (ATL) titled: “A Case Study of the Chithumba Model: a non-traditional finance mechanism to improve access to farm inputs in Malawi”. The briefoutlines the Chithumba bundled services model that includes loans, inputs, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) training, and marketing services. The brief also highlights recommendations for agri-inputs credit issuers, implementing organizations, and agribusinesses.

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Redefining Finance for Agriculture: Green Agricultural Credit for Smallholders in Peru

  • Partner.: Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
  • Publication Type: Brief
  • Date: December 2019

MarketShare Associates (MSA) was engaged as MEDA’s learning partner on INNOVATE, and produced a series of briefs highlighting key results and learnings from the research portfolio assessing the potential of non-traditional finance to stimulate agricultural innovation adoption among smallholder farmers in South Asia, South America and East Africa. MSA produced this brief summarizing key findings and recommendations for government actors and financial institutions from the case study conducted by Global Canopy on “Redefining Finance for Agriculture: Green Agricultural Credit for Smallholders in Peru”.

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Smallholders as Customers, Not Pupils: Making the Case for Good Agricultural Practices

  • Partner.: Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
  • Publication Type: Blog
  • Date: November 12, 2019

With the growing prevalence of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) requirements, smallholder farmers face a business investment decision involving substantial risk and complexity. This blog post, co-authored by MSA as learning partner of the MEDA INNOVATE initiative, makes the case for embracing a business orientation in GAP promotion and provides recommendations for taking a customer-centric approach to engaging smallholder farmers.

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