Mercy Corps AgriFin: GIZ Smart Development Hack Overview
The challenges in agriculture in Africa, particularly for the smallholder farmers producing 80% of its’ food for consumption, are complex, and no single solution exists to reverse age-old issues around markets, infrastructure, poverty and exclusion. Digital solutions can provide relatively low-cost solutions that reach scale quickly, open new markets, and surpass the traditional brick-and-mortar approach to customer acquisition and the distribution and sales of products and services. Over the past five years, AgriFin has worked both to build capacity of fintech and agtech innovators to scale and also worked to broker partnerships for them onto larger digital platforms, typically hosted by banks, mobile network operators, large agricultural enterprises and government. Digital platforms are evolving as drivers for impact and viability in delivery of key services for agriculture and also for scale up of young, breakthrough technology providers. Digital platforms can host multiple service providers, working to offer “end to end” services to drive transformation in agricultural markets and impact for smallholders, while decreasing risks and increasing revenue models for fintechs, agtechs and other market actors.
Drawing on Mercy Corps’ experience implementing the AgriFin Mobile, AgriFin Accelerate and AgriFin Digital Farmer programs, GIZ has engaged Mercy Corps to understand how young technology innovators can be supported in scale and operational viability by engaging with emerging models of digital platforms. The GIZ smart development hack is a six-month, €1,300,000 initiative to work with cohort of partners in Kenya and Nigeria to develop digital solutions that address challenges in the agriculture sector especially brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the complex fragility of many countries, highlighted most clearly in the interplay of public health, markets and food systems. Early warning signs are emerging that the continent is on the brink of an unprecedented food security crisis. In Kenya it is estimated that there are sufficient strategic reserves for three months, but disrupted food systems, logistics and evidence of food hoarding may shorten that timeline, particularly as the largest desert locust invasion in 70 years.
The World Bank estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to push upwards of 115 million into extreme poverty and setting back poverty reduction by around three years.
The primary risks to food security at the country level include: disruptions in domestic food supply chains, other shocks affecting food production, and loss of incomes and remittances that have created strong tensions and food security risks in many countries. A number of countries are experiencing varying levels of food price inflation, at the retail level, due to measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19. Higher retail prices, combined with reduced incomes, mean more and more households are having to cut down on the quantity and quality of their food consumption, with potentially lasting impacts on nutrition and health. The U.N. World Food Programme has warned that that the number of people at risk of encountering acute food insecurity will come close to doubling at the end of the year, from the initial 135 million currently facing acute hunger.
Purpose of Engagement
This project aims to promote zero contact and prevent the spread of COVID-19 by utilizing technology to expand access to food, improve distribution of agriculture outputs by consumers through support farmers utilize updated agriculture extension information to bolster production, cultivation, marketing and distribution of food in Kenya and Nigeria.
Through this engagement Mercy Corps AgriFin (MCAF) will support Food Security for Peace and Nutrition – Africa (FSPN) to address a number of challenges referenced above and develop a digital “Farm to Fork Solution” eliminating contact across digital food security and agriculture supply value chains. MCAF plans to leverage its six years of engagement with more than 130 private and public sector partners across Africa to reach its intended objectives.
FSPN-Africa is an NGO that exclusively works with youth and women at the grassroots towards sustainable food and nutrition security through our guided approaches including policy advocacy, research and development, community education and sensitization and technology and innovation together with our established partnerships with Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and other stakeholders in the food and nutrition security value chain.
Scope of work
The Open Content Agriculture Platform (OCAP) Content Development Consultant will lead content development and implementation with the support of MCAF team leads and partners for the OCAP Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
OCAP, a project of Mercy Corps Agrifin (MCAF), is partnering with KALRO to provide a content marketplace/exchange for expert content developers including KALRO, WFP and CABI to offer high quality digital-ready, farmer-friendly content that can be used free of charge by content distribution partners including FSPN, Agrikonnekt, other MCAF partners that are organizations serving farmers at scale. The goal of OCAP is to enable MCAF partners to cost effectively, acquire and use this content is to build productivity, earned income and resilience of farmers at scale.
For the MVP, content will be acquired from expert partners (KALRO, WFP, CABI, others) in a range of formats including SMS, Wa4B ready and .pdf factsheets. It will include text and rich media (audio, graphics, video). Content will be developed in English and Swahili and be offered in Kenya and Nigeria.
The expert content will be edited and adapted for use in SMS and Wa4B (and underlying chatbots) in simple, clear, compelling learning journeys for farmers. Agronomic reviews/support will be provided by MCAF and partner experts. The OCAP MVP will include Agriculture Value Chains, Climate Smart Agriculture, Financial Literacy, and other content identified as high priority by content distribution partners in Nigeria and Kenya.
Content will be designed for SMS, Whatsapp for Business (Wa4B) platforms and be implemented in flat files (.xls/csv) in a database management system, Whatsapp for Business with Turn.io and potentially other chatbot platforms to be easily accessible by MCAF content distribution partners.
The consultant will conduct the below activities but will not be limited to them in order to create, implement and test content for the OCAP MVP:
Research, gather, organize, and write/edit information for publication of learning journeys in SMS, Wa4B/Chatbots and .xls/.cvs
Work with MCAF Agriculture, Financial Services Climate team leads and MCAFE partners to identify, acquire and edit high priority content
Lead review cycles of content developed with MCAF Agriculture, Financial Services Climate team leads and partners to ensure accuracy, relevance for farmers
Lead review cycles of the content with MCAF development partners and any other partner, and up to 10 others.
Translate of English content into Kiswahili. Lead review process of translations.
Implement content into the content database, Wa4B and underlying chatbots as required.
Manage initial content tagging process for the Hosted database as required
Work with other Marcy Corps partners — providing content framing and look and feel (as needed)
Support MCAF Content Distribution partners for acquisition, review, adaptation, implementation and testing of content with farmers.
Deliverables
The consultant will work to produce the following deliverables, in close collaboration with the AgriFin teams:
Weekly status updates and reports:
Weekly updates in the form of bullet points and any related attachments for work products, key findings, red flag on existing and potential implementation issues and recommendations on next steps with content development and content implementation in the technical platform.
OCAP work product.
Up to 20 (or more) completed farmer friendly content journeys for farmers in English and Kiswahili
Integration of digitized and farmer friendly content into the open content database and Chatbot platform as required
Lead in the OCAP taxonomy process, tagging and categorizing all the content shared by the Content Producers to ensure that the content is easy to find and searchable
