The area around Makola market is crowded with traders trying to carve out a small space to display their goods and attract the attention of potential customers. Rentable shops and market stalls are in short supply. It is fairly common for a property owner to ask for 10 years up Read more…
Wondering what the research is saying about building ICT solutions in Agriculture? Our first ICT4D Technology Research Brief. Click to download the PDF:
There are now quite a number of experimental designs and RCTs (randomized controlled trials) of market information systems measuring revenue gained by rural agriculturalists (farmers, fishermen) and traders. While some show improvements to the prices farmers get for their crops, others disappointingly show a lack of impact. There are also Read more…
A warm welcome to visitors who’ve found their way to this page from the Catholic Relief Services ICT4D conference. To know more about the objectives of this 5+ year research project visit our about page. If you are involved in an ICT4D project in the domain of agricultural, markets, and Read more…
Reposting this entry from The Connectivity, Inclusion, and Inequality Group blog at the Oxford Internet Institute. (see the original post here and download the full report on connectivity and the tea sector in Rwanda) by Chris Foster Market information systems are growing in popularity as an intervention by governments, NGOs Read more…
The daily financial lives of the poor are, without doubt, immensely complex. Irregular, uneven income streams are frequently unable to meet recurring and emergency expenses. Savings deposits and insurance schemes are almost non-existent, and reliance on credit is high. These credit instruments in turn are multifaceted; low-income populations diversify their Read more…
In the absence of agricultural extension officers (paid by the government to disseminate information and expertise on farming), many farmers rely on the local seller of agricultural inputs for tips and advice on handling crop diseases and pests and dealing with other farming problems. Many new mobile phone apps propose Read more…
We are now in the process of analyzing data from last summer’s fieldwork on mobile phone use and money practices (conducted by Ishita Ghosh and Aisha Kigongo – with remote support thanks to Skype and Dropbox from Jenna Burrell). A standard schema of categorization when trying to understand the personal Read more…
This month Janaki Srinivasan presented at the ICTD conference on her project revisiting the site of a canonical study on mobile phone use by fishermen in north Kerala. The original study (by economist Rob Jensen) showed compelling evidence that fishermen used mobile phones to check prices at different beach landing Read more…
Ms Sun* is a university graduate in her mid 20s, originally from a village in the Shaanxi province. She graduated in geography from a university in Beijing, and on her last year as a student she took the exam to become a “university graduate village official” (大学生 村官). This is Read more…