[PANEL SESSIÓN] Leaving nobody behind: Integrating smallholder farmers into global supply chains

Digital platforms are all the rage today. Whether it’s talking about their potential to support employment creation by linking workers to gig based opportunities, or providing smallholder farmers with a reliable one-stop-shop to sell their produce and obtain inputs. What is clear is that the role that platforms play in the economy is becoming increasingly central - and one place that is seeing significant innovation is the use of digital platforms to serve farmers in Africa. To understand why - consider that agriculture employs more than half of the African labour force, and accounts for just shy of 20% of gross domestic product. The key questions for an FSP that wants to participate in this space is: Why should I participate - and if I do want to, what do I need to be mindful of? This case study forms part of the WSBI State of the Savings and Retail Banking Sector in Africa research series, commissioned by the Scale2Save programme and implemented by FinMark Trust. It takes a close look at some of the successful digital platforms that have been rolled out across the African continent to answer these two questions.
Financial services in Africa, like the rest of the world are not always customer centric enough, operate mostly in silos and face quite a few regulatory barriers. This has led to high dormancy rates, and wariness of financial services in some cases. At the same time, the sector in Africa is growing rapidly and a number of FSPs have been very successful in overcoming these challenges - driving meaningful and sustainable low cost engagement with their customers. The WSBIs Scale2Save programme has curated a series of case studies of successful FSPs from Africa and unpacks different aspects of their success - ranging from the construction of agricultural platforms through to establishing new partnerships to deliver better services. The research is short and succinct, and available here at scale2save.wsbi...