Empowering African Agriculture through Classic Mobile Technology

📊 Did You Know?

Mobile payment is one of the most common uses of USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data). In Nigeria, for example, Statista statistics reported that the value of USSD transfer payments in Nigeria amounted to over 550 billion Naira in December 2020 (1.4 billion USD as of Dec 31, 2020).

📖 The Story

Who, When, and Where — Context

One Acre Fund, an organization providing support for quality agricultural practices in East Africa, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Why — Challenge

African communities face challenges of low technology penetration, such as poor internet infrastructure, low device availability, and yet-to-be-enhanced computer literacy. As a result, technology-driven training and collaboration with African farmers about agricultural practices (e.g., e-learning, and online collaboration) are not easy. The challenge became crucial when the COVID-19 lockdown forced service providers to adapt their approach to digital regardless of the constraints.

What and How — Tech Solution

One Acre Fund delivered its farmer-facing educational and financial services via USSD, a shortcode service available on basic mobile phones, including classic feature phones. Since the simple mobile communication interface is widely used by diverse people across African countries, from young urbanites to old ruralists, USSD-based solutions can be easily adopted by community members. In 2020, they scaled up the technology intervention by sending pre-configured tablets to farmers so their journey was not interrupted by the global pandemic.

💡 Key Insights

• 📵 Infrastructure and literacy are the biggest hurdles to digital transformation in emerging nations.

• ⚙️ Thus, technology solutions are better implemented when integrated with the existing, widely-used tools like USSD on feature phones in Africa. The “state-of-the-art” approach may not be the most workable and scalable.

• 💻️ The literacy challenge can be mitigated by making computer devices easy to use, such as pre-configuring the tablets before handing them to the community members.

✅ Try This

Learn the history of USSD from its Wikipedia article. Seek online resources about how classic technology has been playing a crucial role in African digital transformation:

• Evolution of USSD in Africa's Digital Ecosystem | Adapt IT Telecoms

• USSD API – Build mobile apps accessible everywhere | Africa’s Talking