The South-South partnership is fast becoming vital to the development of the Africa continent in the coming years; this is in the light of the emerging development of these regions and growing trade between Africa and the countries in the South. Africa seems to stand at the center of the manifold increase in the BRICS trade in the last ten years as the BRICS countries now trade more with Africa than with each other.Brazil is gradually becoming a vital strategic partner in the Africa developmental issues, such as agriculture, infrastructure and technical cooperation. The well-known old similarities between Brazil and Africa in terms of culture, development circumstances, agricultural situation etc., make the country a more potent source of lesson and partnership for the Africa continent. The development of agriculture in Brazil has been attributed to the countries concerted efforts towards investments in sector towards research for generation of relevant technologies, infrastructural development and supportive policies.The Brazil-Africa leadership forum for 2013, was organized by the Financial Times Live, on the 27th of November 2013, the forum assembled leading trade, finance, business and agricultural research and development experts to discuss the future of Brazil-Africa trade and cooperation. The forum also examined the activities of the government of both continents towards trade policies that drives economic development around the prime sectors. The agricultural sector is considered as a key sector driving development in the two continents; issues around how the Brazil success in the agricultural sector can inform Africa agricultural transformation drive was examined in a panel discussion. FARA representative alongside with the representatives of Standard Bank of Africa, IFAD and Pinesso Group participated in the session.Africa agriculture stands as a “Bundle of Potentials” that are yet to be unlocked, unlocking the potentials will require all it takes to make Africa agriculture yield its contribution to national economy growth and the wellbeing of Africa majority that depends on it for their livelihood. While the spate of agricultural technologies remains an issue for urgent attention, there are many institutional and infrastructural issues that would still limits benefits from the best technologies if they are not addressed. The on-going strategic alliance program between Brazil and Africa on agriculture named “Africa-Brazil Innovation Market Place” has fostered series of collaboration between Africa researchers and Brazilian researcher from EMBRAPA. This has led to exchange of germplasm, technologies and different production and processing techniques. The projects within this partnership have generated a handful of successes that could be scaled-up and out for the benefits of more farmers in Africa. However, Africa will benefits a lot better from this strategic alliance if it’s debilitating infrastructure deficit could find a solution within this strategic alliance, especially if it could draw the attention of the Brazilian investors in bridging the financing gap for infrastructure development in Africa.Apparently, the growth of Africa agriculture will be driving by its growing middle class population which had its height of 33% in 2012. The demand for more processed commodities will increase compared to raw commodities, while the supermarket mode of retailing agricultural food commodities will also grow. This projection could be satisfied either by importation of the processed and packaged commodities or a response from within Africa to develop its commodity value chain. The latter is the best for the continent and could be achieved by development of infrastructure, acquisition of needed technologies for post-harvest processing and provision of affordable financing for the willing investors.Possibly, the share of Africa in agricultural commodity trade at the global level is very low compared to other continents in the short run; it may increase in the medium term, if the necessary investments are made to support the sector. But it will surely increase steadily in the long term based on reported availability of 60% of the available arable land in Africa.The efforts of FARA to foster the development of agriculture on the continent have generated a number of initiatives that could fast-track the development of the sector. The debut IAR4D concept has been proven to foster quick and higher returns from agricultural research and development efforts; while its Innovative Fund for Agricultural transformation (IFAT) has projected an innovative mechanism for extension of affordable credit to transform the smallholders to small scale enterprises. As it relates to the developing appropriate technologies, FARA is working with all stakeholders in Africa agriculture to develop the Africa Agricultural Science Agenda; this is expected to drive the direction of the Africa agricultural research for development. The role of Brazil-Africa collaboration is vital and a positive partner that is willing to aid the Africa agricultural development.
Ghana’s six mobile network operators have been slow to take advantage of agricultural value chains in the provision of mobile services.
Visit Ghana and ask for the phone number of any ordinary person on the street, and most likely you’ll be given the option of two or three different mobile network operators (MNOs) to choose from. Ghana has 19 million cell phone subscribers for its over 24 million inhabitants — an impressive proportion — most of whom subscribe to more than one operator.
Ghana is one of Africa’s most vibrant and innovative communications markets. It launched the first cellular mobile network in sub-Saharan Africa in 1992, and was one of the first countries on the continent to be connected to the Internet and introduce ADSL services. A market leader in terms of liberalization and deregulation, Ghana Telecom in 1996.
Ghana is serviced by six MNOs, including: Scancom (MTN) with 50% of the market share; Millicom (Tigo), 21%; Vodafone Mobile, 18%; Bharti Airtel, 10%; and Expresso and Glo, the most recent additions with the smallest market shares.
In mid-2010 the voice market reached more than 70% penetration, but huge potential still exists for the 3G broadband services that were launched in 2009.
Mobile services
In terms of economic impact, the telecoms sector has contributed significantly to the country’s increase in GDP over the past twenty years and there is still massive room for growth. The question, then, is how many of these businesses have ever rolled out an innovation to support agriculture?
Value-added services such as mobile money have created jobs in the telecommunications and banking sectors as well as for the more than 4000 merchants in Ghana’s mobile money system. MTN’s Mobile Money was the first mobile or branchless banking initiative in the country and operates in partnership with nine of Ghana’s banks. They currently have more than two million active users and MTN expects this number to grow through the education of subscribers on the benefits of switching from cash payments to electronic ones.
But outreach activities rarely address the needs of our smallholder farmers. Is it because MNOs consider farmers to be poor to use the services, or perhaps not sufficiently savvy on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)?
Operator Risks
Risks factors for mobile banking operators come in the form of strategic, reputational, compliance and operational risks. Operators need to keep a close eye on their outsourced providers, ensuring their activities are consistent with the overall strategic goals of the regulated entity — a task that may not be easy in the isolated, rural areas where most of our smallholders are located.
The same is true of reputational threats, which come in the form of poor service via third-party agents or consumer experiences that are inconsistent with the overall standards of the operator. Operators may have difficulties with ensuring that privacy, consumer and prudential laws are complied with at all times.
Operational risks are usually the biggest risk to operators. Technology failure, human error, cyber fraud, agent fraud, insecurity and unreliability of services and lack of customer education are just a number of factors that put operators at risk when lending their services to all users, smallholder farmers included.
Operator benefits and Africa’s booming mobile market
With so many potential risks, what are the incentives for getting involved in mobile services?
The simple answer is to have the ability to reach millions of new customers and offer a multitude of services from bank loans to account payments. Or, let’s not forget, to supply vital agricultural updates that could improve the quality of lives of millions of people and assist in the economic growth of many countries.
The rapid growth of the mobile market across Africa has had a positive impact on the continent’s economic growth. As the telecommunication sector grows, jobs are created not just within the MNOs, but also for their agents and supply chain partners.
Local businesses are benefiting from mobile banking as payments are easily made in the business to business and business to customer arena. Mobile application development has resulted in initiatives which have a massive effect on agriculture, medicine and the non-profit sector.
My worry is this: During the 6th Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW6) conference held recently in Accra, Ghana, over 90 booths were sponsored by exhibitors attempting to speak to the theme of the event, “Africa feeding Africa through agricultural science and innovation.” Fascinating technologies like the the all new ‘fufu’ making machine and fresh research findings like the “Push-Pull” strategy for pest management were exhibited by individuals, institutions and research organizations from Africa and the world over.
Among all these happenings, I failed to recognize any of the booths being occupied by an MNO. Maybe they don’t have anything to exhibit. But farmers use their services too — so why aren’t they here?
Full inclusion of the various mobile money services in the agricultural value chain could benefit both farmer livelihoods and the bottom line of mobile operators. I am of the strong opinion that its about time that MNOs are tasked with factoring farmers in to their innovation strategies. Maybe in three years’ time, at the next AASW, we’ll see a couple of MNO booths in the lineup.
Blogpost by Nana Darko, Rite 90.1 FM and a social media reporter for AASW6.
Photo: W. Vota
