All Good Things Must End…Farewell to the mSTAR Project

By Erica Bustinza

Throughout mSTAR’s farewell blog series, the team recalled the progress and achievements from seven years of implementation highlighting some of our most informative work. We began with the birth of mSTAR and a year-on-year retrospective of achievements including how mSTAR’s work has transformed the digital landscape. The progress of DFS in three markets, Bangladesh, India and Myanmar, highlights success factors to consider when rolling out new products. A use case of digitization of conditional cash transfers for a Feed the Future activity in Cambodia detailed implementation as well as challenges that may hinder implementation. A look at barriers to gender equality in ICT interventions shows how ICT projects and digital tools need to address the social and cultural norms that prevent women’s participation. These barriers are apparent in Myanmar where grants to three local digital agriculture companies uncovered difficulties in reaching rural women in agriculture with ICT interventions, thus unintentionally excluding them from opportunities. Successful digital interventions in agriculture are more back-end design heavy, reliant on donor funding and are designed directly for rural customers rather than retooling existing products for a different clientele. And finally we looked at how three mobile money pilots in India differed based on type of business and how women perceive their income source.

Back in 2012 the digital landscape in international development looked quite different than today. At that time, M-Pesa was just taking off and the development community was beginning to learn how digital payments could reduce time and costs for the consumer while offering increased security and transparency. Nations were developing regulatory policies around these tools and gaining an understanding of how these policies could be more conducive to helping the underserved. Development implementers were starting to practice a higher caliber of data collection and mobile tools were increasingly supporting these efforts. These advances are an example of the continued growth USAID was investing in when it launched the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research project, implemented by FHI 360.

Since its beginning, mSTAR has been a true collaboration between USAID and partners including NGOs, tech firms, host country governments, mobile network operators, private consultants and others. As a team, mSTAR and our partners have identified how digital tools can enhance current efforts and developed new practices that have led to more efficient, responsive, inclusive and safer implementation.

mSTAR’s impact has been particularly evident through its role as a convener and thought leader. Over 7 years, mSTAR has held 329 convenings. These events include trainings for USAID Mission staff from around the world, building champions to take digital learnings back and share within their countries. They also range from those targeting hundreds of high-level diplomatic participants in DC, to those in rural corners of Liberia, demonstrating to teachers and health workers how to use their phones to access their paychecks.

As thought leaders, mSTAR and USAID have worked together to develop 725 tools, guides, manuals and blogs to help practitioners incorporate research and learnings in their work. mSTAR’s tools have been accessed a recorded 55,000 times.

mSTAR’s journey has produced many lessons for the development community, from the use of responsible data, to how to use digital financial services in agriculture. We hope that our work to increase demand and enable supply will leave behind more developed ecosystems in Bangladesh, Liberia and India, where much of our work has focused, and beyond. We hope that the wealth of materials, use case examples and practical documentation we’ve created remains accessible. We hope that during our implementation, we have better-equipped USAID and implementing partners to oversee and manage these digital development interventions, and that they will spread the knowledge they’ve gained in ways that will benefit projects and beneficiaries for years to come.

Digital technology is here to stay. Others will build off of mSTAR’s legacy, and in seven years we will look back at how different the landscape was today. From all of us at mSTAR, we’d like to say “thank you” to USAID for supporting these achievements and for doing the work with us. Thank you to our partners for being a part of the team and lending their technical capacity in so many ways. mSTAR is closing, but FHI 360 looks forward to continuing to create with and learn from our partners and keep sight of leaving the world a better place than we found it.

Erica Bustinza is the Project Director of mSTAR at FHI 360. She has worked in development for over 10 years in various geographic regions and sectors, primarily focused on access to finance, economic development and technology integration. She holds a MSc in International Development from Tulane University and a BSc from Bradley University.

Photo credit: Riaz Jahanpour/Digital Development Communications

We tested mobile money in three similar contexts in India and found surprising differences, but why?

By Carrie Nichols

With India’s recent goal to become a “less-cash” society, digital payment methods have become increasingly important. This is especially true for rural populations, which have less access to banks and have been slower to adopt mobile and digital tools. Internet penetration in urban India, for example, was 64.84 percent in December 2017. In comparison, rural internet penetration in December 2017 was only 20.26 percent. To combat this dire need for digital payment methods, yet a lack of access to digital tools, mSTAR partnered with Intellecap to create and test sustainable approaches to onboard rural populations onto digital payments.

With support from mSTAR, Intellecap conducted three pilots across Jharkhand, Odisha and Maharashtra to digitize payments in rural India in the dairy, poultry, and food and beverage value chains.

Over six months, mSTAR and Intellecap onboarded over 600 women onto digital payments, working with employees of Milk Mantra in the dairy value chain, cooperative members of the Jharkhand Women’s Self-supporting Poultry Cooperative Federation Ltd in the poultry value chain, and members of a Mann Deshi Foundation cooperative in the food and beverage value chain. Through the pilots, both organizations and individuals saw that digital payments made good sense. During the pilot, not only did the dairy aggregators milk supply increase, but also 80 percent of women dairy farmers reported higher incomes. Within the poultry value chain pilot, 60 percent of women experienced a reduction in delays associated with payments. There were also more intangible benefits for these women, such as time saved going to the bank and waiting in lines, being recognized by their peers for their growing businesses, and the chance to better provide for their families.

As mSTAR and Intellecap implemented the pilots, the critical importance of context became clear. Although the target populations across the pilots had similarities – rural, female, operating or starting small businesses – there were key differences in how these populations used DFS.

One difference between the target populations was the type of income they were receiving from their small businesses. Women in the poultry value chain pilot often didn’t have well-developed farms or agricultural income, meaning that the money they earned from raising chickens was their main source of income. Because of the way the poultry sector works, the income received is generally in a lump sum, delivered at longer intervals. Due to this and a worry about spending money if they had it in hand, women in this pilot were more likely to save money in their mobile accounts. While this wasn’t tested in the pilot, it’s possible that this type of behavior could lead to longer-term savings or larger investments in their business.

In the dairy and food and beverage value chains, women considered their income from dairy or food and beverage as a secondary or even tertiary income for the household. Therefore, these women had different behaviors and relationships to the money received in their mobile accounts. Women working in dairy used their small but regular incomes to pay for minor day-to-day expenses while women in food and beverage used their incomes to buy raw materials for their business. Because these weren’t main incomes sources, women were more nonchalant about the income and would generally withdraw the money from their mobile accounts the day it was credited.

These differences in income withdrawal may not seem huge. After all, the women in each value chain pilot signed up for and were regularly using their mobile money accounts. However, these findings suggest that if digital financial service providers and their partners know how customers will use the income put into their mobile money account, they can create more tailored products, target markets more accurately, and advertise more effectively to increase long-term adoption.

Learn more about the pilots here:

Carrie Nichols has eight years of experience managing programs in international development. At FHI 360 she managed activities in ICT4D and digital financial services across sectors. Prior to joining FHI 360 Carrie managed public health supply chain projects. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Mali and a Returned Peace Corps Response Volunteer from Zambia and has an MA from the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University.

Social Norms Are the Biggest Barrier to Equitable ICT Use, But What Does This Mean for Women?

This past September, Revi Sterling, Director of USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge, and Tom Koutsky, USAID Senior Connectivity Policy Advisor, presented their paper, “Understanding the Gender Digital Divide: Social Norms and the USAID WomenConnect Challenge,” at TPRC47: Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy. The paper has insights and lessons that every development professional will find useful, even if they don’t work specifically on tech or gender. The second round of the WomenConnect Challenge was recently announced at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019 (check the website for more info!) and check out the paper to learn more.

By Carrie Nichols

I recently read a paper by Revi Sterling, Director of USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge, and Tom Koutsky, USAID Senior Connectivity Policy Advisor, “Understanding the Gender Digital Divide: Social Norms and the USAID WomenConnect Challenge.” I took away some key learnings from this document, and from former mSTAR Revi Sterling’s constant reminder to development practitioners seeking to incorporate digital tools: one of the universal truths of information and communications technologies is that they often fail to diffuse in an equitable way across society. In far too many societies around the world, women do not use or access mobile, digital, and internet technologies in the same numbers or ways that men do, which has led to the digital gender divide. Women in developing countries are 50 percent less likely to use the internet than men. Yet, while researchers, tech companies, non-profits, and international development agencies are working to bridge this gender digital divide, the interventions are often conducted without fully addressing the contextualized barriers to women’s use of ICTs.

It may seem easy to think that perhaps a lack of access to ICTs means women don’t want or need access to these digital resources. But research has shown that the diminished access to these resources further contributes to the marginalization of women and opportunities for development. This in turn leads to less resilience in the face of economic downturns or personal or family crises. All of this feeds a cycle of women’s under-development and systemic poverty. A recent report from GSMA quotes McKinsey and Company forecasting that “increased internet access could add 10 percent or $300 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2025.” Targeting women and working to remove barriers to ICT access and use would not only contribute economically but would empower women and address long-term resilience.

Through the Connected Women Initiative and the Women and the Web Alliance partnerships, USAID has been working to find solutions that can help close the digital gender divide. While these programs have supported millions of women, there is more to be done. Follow up interviews with Women and the Web Alliance participants found that those who successfully transitioned to using ICT to improve their lives and livelihoods were generally considered “outsiders.” This observation shows that pervasive social barriers still exist to women and girls accessing and using ICT even after program interventions, meaning that the vast majority of women are still excluded.

To address this, USAID developed the WomenConnect Challenge. This challenge works specifically at the level of social norms that prohibit women’s use of ICT, rather than only addressing the skills-training side of digital inclusion. On International Women’s Day in March 2018, USAID Administrator Mark Green and other high-ranking government officials launched an open call for WomenConnect Challenge proposals.

The challenge garnered robust interest from around the world. The RFP was downloaded over 5,000 times, 10,000 people joined the mailing list, and more than 500 proposals were received and evaluated. While the WomenConnect Challenge was open to addressing all barriers to ICT adoption, fewer than 50 of the proposals focused on social norms. Most proposals did not mention the gender digital divide, showing that social norms for women’s use of ICT remains a difficult barrier to address. Surprisingly, in a funding challenge named “WomenConnect” 80 percent of the proposals that proposed developing an app or information platform did not propose any value for women. More than 200 of the proposals suggested ICT skills training courses for women online and in person, yet it has been identified that social norms often prevent women from attending ICT courses in any format.

The mere fact that many of the proposals clearly didn’t address the barriers of women’s use of ICT shows how difficult it is to address the gender digital divide. Even many small, community-based organizations failed to mention the gender digital divide or social norms, meaning there is clearly still much work to be done.

Despite the fact that many proposals did not clearly address the digital gender divide, there were quite a few strong proposals. Nine were ultimately chosen as WomenConnect Challenge awardees, and demonstrated deep knowledge of the cultural conditions in which they wanted to work. The winners are a diverse group with solutions across Africa, South America, and South Asia. For example, Equal Access International won for its proposal for a 12-episode show for a Nigerian radio station to break down gender stereotypes, challenge cultural taboos, and promote skills and opportunities for women and girls to use digital technology. Innovations for Poverty Action is working in the Dominican Republic to test new credit scoring models using data from mobile phones to help women access credit. Mali Health is working with women in local savings and loan groups to share information on preventative health and ways to access and finance health services through a voice-based social network app using local languages. These are just a few of the amazing winners. You can learn more about all the winners and their programs here.

These projects are still underway, but many lessons can still be gleaned from the WomenConnect Challenge thus far; social norms need to be front and center when discussing women’s barriers to technology and making long-term changes. There are already tools and frameworks to help us emphasize social gender norms. Development practitioners should be using them to find ways to ensure women’s participation and, just as importantly, understand why women don’t participate. Though technology adoption may be the goal, the impact of that adoption should be bigger. 1.7 billion women don’t currently have access or use ICTs. These women need “on ramps” and to be treated like full humans, with complex needs in order to bring them into the fold and contribute to long-term adoption.

The WomenConnect Challenge has, for perhaps the first time, identified social norms as the largest barrier to women’s access and use of ICT in developing countries. By focusing on social norms the hope is that more women (and men!) will see the many benefits of women having equitable access to digital technologies and lead to a more equitable digital revolution.

Carrie Nichols has eight years of experience managing programs in international development. At FHI 360 she managed activities in ICT4D and digital financial services across sectors. Prior to joining FHI 360 Carrie managed public health supply chain projects. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Mali and a Returned Peace Corps Response Volunteer from Zambia and has an MA from the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University.

Photo by USAID Digital Development

Are women being left out of tech? The challenges and successes of including women in digital financial services in Myanmar

By Ellen Galdava

On average, women make up 43% of the agriculture labor in developing countries, ranging from 20% in Latin America to 50% in East and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Similar to other markets, women and girls in agriculture encounter challenges related to managing income, land, productive resources and accessing education, financial, and information services. Information communication technology (ICT), including digital financial services (DFS), can contribute to reducing the gender gap in agriculture. They have the potential to empower women and girls to increase sustainable output, manage farm and agribusiness efficiently, and improve gender equality throughout the agriculture value chain. However, the digital, rural, and gender divide — also called the “triple divide”—  that women face in agriculture and in other markets, creates challenges in accessing and using ICT and DFS tools. We can see this in the latest data from GSMA that found that women are 10% less likely to own a mobile phone. Across low- and middle-income countries, 390 million women are completely unconnected.

Photo by Kelly Ramundo, USAID

We can see how the “triple divide” affects women in Myanmar, where 46.56% of women are employed in agriculture but are 29% less likely than men to own a mobile phone. The gap in mobile ownership in Myanmar is a combination of low household income and societal norms. Despite traditional gender roles in Myanmar, women, especially smallholder farmers, often take the lead in managing household finances. UNCDF’s financial diaries research in Myanmar identified that transactions in households are cash-based and access to formal banking services are limited. With the increase of smartphone penetration and an evolving DFS regulatory environment, there is a huge potential to increase access to financial services for women in Myanmar. This, coupled with a compelling need for financial services, creates an opportunity for mobile network operators, startups and development practitioners to introduce DFS as an opportunity to make efficient transactions, savings and request loans in case of household emergencies.

Despite existing opportunities to include women in the country’s economic growth, the substantial digital gender divide leaves female smallholder farmers excluded. As agriculture is a main driver of Myanmar’s economy, the USAID-funded and FHI 360-led Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project launched pilot activities to integrate ICT and financial services into the rural, agricultural communities in Myanmar. mSTAR provided grants to three local digital agriculture companies, Greenovator, Village Link, and Tun Yat, to integrate DFS into their existing digital agriculture platforms.

After the pilot implementation, mSTAR grantees reported on their experiences of working with female smallholder farmers and the challenges they encountered during the implementation. Greenovator, Village Link and Tun Yat had differing experiences around working with women farmers, from difficulties with societal norms around use of technology, to successes around better data and tracking on female user uptake. Below are some of the experiences they shared with us.

Greenovator is an agriculture technology social enterprise that operates the Green Way application to share a variety of agriculture information and services with rural farming communities. With the mSTAR grant, they were able to integrate mobile payments into their system to enable farmers to easily pay for membership fees for agriculture associations. During the pilot, Greenovator worked with women and men farmers equally. However, they faced numerous challenges related to social norms around use of technology. Primarily, women in Myanmar perceive technology as machines that are “man’s business.” Because of the social stigma and lack of smartphone ownership by women, many female farmers registered for the app using their husband’s accounts, which prevented Greenovator from being able to fully understand their user demographics and develop a realistic picture of smallholder women using DFS. This challenge also prevented Greenovator from being able to update their outreach strategy to reach more female users.

Photo by Brooke Patterson, USAID

mSTAR grantee Village Link operates the Htwettoe application, which provides farmers with customized, up-to-date, data-driven advice. Through the grant, Village Link incorporated a feature into their app allowing farmers to make mobile loan payments to Maha Agriculture Public Co., a microfinance company. Partnering with Maha Agriculture Public Co. enabled Village Link to better track the female user uptake and identify that 21% of the users and 65% of borrowers from Maha Agriculture Public Co. were female farmers. This data was not a surprise as the UNCDF financial diaries revealed that household income in Myanmar is often managed by women. The available data on female users enabled Village Link to better target female smallholder farmers and increase DFS uptake among female users.

The third mSTAR grantee, Tun Yat, is an agri-tech company that rents affordable, high-quality farming machines using a booking app and as part of the grant, Tun Yat integrated mobile payments into their platform. Based on the experience of micro-finance institutions and Wave Money, Tun Yat learned that female users in Myanmar have a better repayment track record and are more reliable in managing household income and payments. Based on the insights, Tun Yat developed a home-visit strategy that included follow-up home visits, small group trainings and in-person coaching to target female users. By the end of the pilot, 25% out of 128 digital users were female. Tun Yat, similar to other mSTAR grantees, faced numerous challenges when targeting female users. For example, a majority of women in Myanmar do not have access to smartphones, have limited internet access and require more in-person trainings to increase their digital skills.

The pilot program and the challenges associated with reaching female smallholder farmers revealed how the development community and private companies are inadvertently excluding big segments of their potential customers. Female farmers represent half of the agriculture labor in Myanmar and manage household finances and payments, yet they are often excluded from access to financial services, effectively hindering productivity and efficiency of the agricultural value chain as well as the development and growth potential of female smallholder farmers. DFS provides an opportunity to address these challenges by enabling women to own, manage mobile wallets and make transactions without access to formal financial institutions.

Ellen Galdava is a Program Officer with FHI 360. She has been managing programs in international development and ICT4D for five years. At FHI 360, she manages an ICT for agriculture program and leads research related to digital financial services in education, health and agriculture. Prior to joining FHI 360, Ellen supported the development of an online class curriculum on Corporate Sustainability for undergraduate and graduate students from Eastern Europe. She holds a Master of Science degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.

Feature photo courtesy of Kelly Ramundo, USAID.

3 countries, 6 years, and 5 lessons on the DFS Space from Josh Woodard

mSTAR comes to a close this June after 7 years of implementation. During the successful run of the project, mSTAR helped usher in the era of digital development, working closely with USAID’s Global Development Lab, USAID Missions, implementing partners, civil society, local governments and the private sector. mSTAR has produced over 650 learning documents, hosted over 280 events with more than 16,000 participants, and worked in 28 countries. In this closeout blog series, staff share their perspectives on the impressive accomplishments, activities, and lessons learned from 7 years of work in digital inclusion, digital financial services, development informatics and digital tools in agriculture.

By Josh Woodard

When mSTAR first started working in the digital payments space back in 2013, the focus was relatively straightforward: help USAID’s implementing partners reduce their use of cash in the field by making payments for costs like allowances and reimbursements directly to beneficiaries and staff via mobile money.

In Bangladesh, where we began those efforts, we were able to see pretty solid results from those efforts. Organizations like Dnet and WorldFish recognized significant savings in terms of staff time and reduced costs. The potential of digital financial services (DFS), however, was always greater than just improved transparency and efficiency within development projects. As markets evolved and access to DFS increased, more opportunities arose to explore how digitization could be an enabler of financial inclusion and economic participation.

Over the past six years, I’ve had the opportunity to oversee the maturation of the use of DFS through our work in Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar. By the end of four years of activities in Bangladesh, our team helped to digitize more than $2.7 million in transactions made to 36,515 individuals, three-quarters of whom were women. Our work in the agriculture sector helped show how DFS could enhance development outcomes, and led to the launch of the country’s first-ever digitally-enabled agri-input loans, which have continued to expand to this day.

In India, our support for the Catalyst initiative used an ecosystem approach to drive learning and experimentation in digitizing merchant payments for the urban poor. Our pilots digitizing agricultural value chain payments in rural India resulted in proof of concepts for how financial service providers can appropriately, effectively and profitably serve this market segment, which were predominantly women. Watch our latest video on this work here. 

While in Myanmar, back in 2015, we conducted the first publicly accessible assessment on opportunities for using DFS in agricultural value chains at a time when DFS was only just being introduced into the country. Several years later, the market had matured enough that we were able to support the integration of DFS into three digital agriculture services in the country, thereby making it easier for farmers to pay for services, join associations and access credit.

Our experiences in each of these three countries were different and each faced their own unique—as well as some similar—challenges. While we have learned a lot about the use of digital financial inclusion for development, I want to share five thoughts that I think any development actor looking to provide value in the DFS space should keep in mind.

Context, context, context. This might seem intuitive, but sometimes even the best of us forget to really understand the context we are working in. For example, in Bangladesh and India, one of the challenges that women from conservative households faced was that their husband or father often would not allow them to go to the markets alone (where agent points often are). In one rural village where we worked in India, the separation of castes was still pretty strongly enforced. Failing to understand these contexts and the implications they have on people’s access to services is a sure path towards ineffectiveness. We developed resources, such as our Guide to Increasing Women’s Financial Inclusion in Bangladesh through Digital Financial Services, to help development practitioners and financial service providers think about these issues more thoughtfully.

There’s no single on-ramp to genuine financial inclusion. For years, I’ve heard people talk about how such-and-such is the on-ramp to real financial inclusion, whether that be wage payments, merchant payments, savings, credit, what have you. The reality, from my experience, is that there is no single on-ramp. People have different financial needs. We need to look at all of the potential drivers for uptake and usage in a highly contextual manner if we really want to understand what types of products and services are likely to be the best enablers for each sub-segment we are targeting.

An ecosystem approach can help set the foundation. Focusing on building and supporting ecosystems and the actors within can be vital in ensuring that policies, products and services are adequately designed and delivered in ways that benefit citizens and businesses. In Bangladesh, we created the Mobile Money Consultative Group to bring together development practitioners, financial service providers, and other relevant stakeholders to discuss and solve shared challenges. Whereas in India, Catalyst used an ecosystem approach to crowd-in stakeholders to test and scale initiatives, as well as to share insights with policymakers. There can be a lot of value to having neutral and unbiased actors present win-win opportunities and encourage actors to work together more collaboratively.

But don’t forget to follow the money. In the early days in Bangladesh, we focused on the point of transaction that most interested us: those that were to/from consumers. We soon realized that unless there was a compelling case for digitization all along the transaction chain, things would break down. If a merchant cannot seamlessly pay their distributors digitally, then even if there are products that would enable them to accept digital payments from customers, they are unlikely to do so. To address these, we started mapping opportunities and roadblocks to digitize entire transaction flows (such as here and here) and presenting these to financial service providers.

Serving the poor does not need to be about charity. Our approach towards enlisting the support and services of financial service providers was always to make the business case to them. We conducted market opportunity assessments (such as this one) to identify where opportunities existed for those providers to profitably serve lower-income segments with financial products that met their needs and budgetary requirements. Of course, they could have done those assessments themselves, but too often there was simply the assumption that these segments would not be profitable, so they didn’t bother investing the resources to look at the opportunity. We brought the opportunity—and often the partnerships—to them but it was their own investment to deploy their services, not grant funding.

While our journey on mSTAR is coming to a close, there is still significant opportunity for growth and learning around the use of DFS to advance financial inclusion and economic participation. Hopefully what we’ve learned over the past six years will be of value to others seeking to further digital financial inclusion around the world.

Josh Woodard is a Regional ICT & Digital Advisor for FHI 360. He led mSTAR’s work in Bangladesh and provided technical oversight for its work in Myanmar and India. In addition to the mSTAR blog, he occasionally shares his perspectives on digital technology and development on LinkedIn.

Engaging Youth In Agriculture Through Information and Communication Technology – New Case Study

By Nikki Brand

Around the world, youth in developing countries are leaving their family farms and seeking out other professional opportunities. Born in a remote village in Nepal, Sibjan Chaulagai knows this personally. Though most families in his village rely on agriculture for survival, Sibjan, like many of his peers, sought out a different career path.

The phenomenon of youth leaving farms spreads throughout the developing world. The average age of a farmer today is around 60 years old. In Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda, the economies that are the focus of the U.S. Government’s Global Food Security Strategy, youth are increasingly seeking out alternative career paths rather than following in their parents’ footsteps and pursuing agriculture. Many youth choose to migrate from rural to urban areas, pursuing work they see as more profitable and prestigious than the hard labor and unpredictability of farming.

Yet at the same time youth are leaving farms, the developing world is also getting younger. Ten of the youngest countries in the world are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The confluence of these trends brings up a pressing concern: who will feed the future?

While the ambition of these youths to leave their homes and make a life for themselves outside the unpredictability of farm is understandable, if these trends continue, a food crisis is imminent.

Digital tools may offer a solution to call youth back to the farm – or to farm-related professions – and give them the skills they need to pursue a fulfilling life and career in agriculture. Leveraging mobile phones, the internet, and other emerging technologies can be one approach for development actors when creating strategies to show young farmers, and young would-be farmers, that agriculture can be both profitable and prestigious.

Sibjan, from the rural village in Nepal, recognized the possibilities of technology. After leaving his village, Sibjan studied engineering. He realized that the technology he was learning about could benefit his community. He returned home, set up solar-powered computer labs, and eventually founded an ag-tech company called ICT for Agri and later an app called Krishi Guru. Both tools connect his community, and now thousands of other communities, to agriculture information. “I decided that if agriculture is the main focus of the people in the village, and what they need to survive, I should find a way to use my education to help them,” Sibjan says. Now, he says, the agricultural sector has become a hot topic of conversation, particularly among youth who are returning after of migrant work in Gulf countries.

Sibjan and his company were recognized by USAID’s Data Driven Farming Prize, which brought together thirteen young ag-tech innovators, including six from Nepal, in a co-creation process to develop tools for smallholder farmers to improve value from agricultural productivity.

There are other examples of how the development sector, and young innovators themselves, are harnessing technology to improve agriculture’s appeal. In East Africa, the Mediae Company has produced a number of reality-style TV shows, including Shamba Shape-Up and Don’t Lose the Plot, which aim to engage young people in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania about farming as a business. In Guatemala, Mercy Corps’ Agrijoven project partnered with Rana Labs to train Guatemalan youths in video production using the smartphones that youth already had and a few low-cost accessories, resulting in a series of professional-quality videos on good agricultural practices.

A new case study from the U.S. Agency for International Development, through the U.S. Global Development Lab and the Bureau for Food Security, highlights innovative approaches being used around the world, and in particular, in Global Food Security Strategy countries, to engage youth in agriculture through digital and mobile technologies.

Digital tools have great potential to shift demographic trends and help youth see the profit potential in agriculture. As Sibjan can attest, they can transform the narrative around agriculture. Sibjan is ensuring that the success of his digital tools continues. ICT for Agri now hosts five agriculture students as interns who help respond to inquiries on the platform. These interns are able increase their knowledge about agriculture and technology while having a direct connection with farmers. If more youth like these engage in farming and digital tools, it might be youth themselves who will feed the future.

Read the new case study here and check out the other case studies in the series.

Nikki Brand is a consultant focusing on the applications of technology in international development and agriculture. She will graduate from Stanford University with a Master’s in International Policy in June 2019. Prior to Stanford, Brand served as a program analyst for Digital Development for Feed the Future, a collaboration between the U.S. Global Development Lab and the Bureau for Food Security at USAID, aimed at integrating digital technologies and innovative solutions into Feed the Future, the US government’s global hunger and food security initiative. She previously served as a program assistant for the digital financial services team at USAID, as a field consultant in Guatemala for Community Empowerment Solutions, an organization that empowers local micro-entrepreneurs to market and sell products with health and environmental benefits, and has worked with a range of public- and private-sector organizations including Atlas AI, the Digital Impact Alliance, IDEO.org, Proximity Designs, DFAT, FHI 360, DAI, and GRID Impact. Brand holds a Bachelor’s in Peace and Conflict studies, with Minors in Global Poverty & Practice and Spanish, from the University of California, Berkeley.

African Economies are Rapidly Growing- How Can the Development Sector Support their Continued Growth?

By Nina Getachew and Conor Farrell

Development practitioners often focus on the world’s most dire situations: the extreme poor, marginalized communities, and curbing health crises, to name a few. But as development practitioners are laser-focused on the world’s many complicated issues, it’s easy to overlook the immense progress the world has made in many areas.

For example, Africa is now home to six of the top ten fastest growing economies, five of the top ten reformers on the 2018 ease of doing business indicators, and over 400 companies with an annual revenue of one billion US dollars. While these are promising trends and the opportunity for sustained growth in Africa is abundantly clear, how can the development sector identify and support these booming economies and the burgeoning private sector? How can the private sector coordinate their growth strategies with the goals of development partners?

As development practitioners, many of these questions came to the fore for us at the fourth-annual Georgetown Africa Business Conference, which featured the opportunities and challenges of doing business on the continent and best practices and new ways of thinking about Africa’s long-standing issues. The conference brought to light the too often overlooked but real change happening across economies in Africa.

Think Africa

The many challenges Africa faces across food security, health and infrastructure may persist, but positive changes are abundant. Africa is at the forefront of a technological revolution, celebrating the use of digital technology to foster homegrown innovation. With booming tech hubs from Cape Town to Kenya (aka Silicon Savannah), platforms like EZ-Farming, which connects youth farmers to investors with the goal of reducing unemployment and increasing agricultural investment, are emerging. Some of these new startups were highlighted at a pitch competition the conference held, which EZ-Farming won. Their solution was welcomed by a cheerful crowd, encapsulating the optimism that these positive changes are inevitable.

Furthermore, regional, policy-level efforts across Africa are expanding the potential for cross-border collaboration and trade. Some of these policies include the African Continental Free Trade Area to increase intra-African trade, diversify economies and counter the previous reliance on foreign assistance. Non-African governments and investors are also taking note of Africa’s growth. The U.S. Congress also recently signed the BUILD Act, which, through the newly formed International Development Finance Corporation, provides equity investments, technical assistance and the opportunity to drive private capital to developing countries.

Improve infrastructure for cross-border trade

In 2018, intra-African trade accounted for only 15 percent of overall trade across the continent, meaning many countries continue to be heavily reliant on foreign imports for food, goods, and the development of public services. Due to the frequently high tariffs between African countries, it is usually cheaper to import from countries outside of Africa than rely on goods from neighboring countries. Compounding these trade barriers is the often-underdeveloped infrastructure and the lack of reliable transportation options.

“How can it cost $1,000 to ship a car from Japan to the Ivory Coast but $5,000 to ship the same car from the Ivory Coast to Ethiopia?”

While long identified as a barrier to growth, traditional foreign aid actors rarely focus on the large infrastructure projects required to address these issues, but new players are finding new ways to meet these needs. For example, investors like China use government-to-government financing mechanisms and loans to provide direct support to build out infrastructure. The key challenge, it seems, is understanding how these new players are utilizing the local workforce and contributing to the economy without exploiting the resources or using the continent as a stepping stone for regional hegemony.

Leverage Technology

Africa is the only region in the world where the youth population is increasing. Estimates show that by 2050, the number of those aged 0-24 will double, comprising nearly twice the youth population of South Asia and Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania. Panelists at the Georgetown Conference pointed out that, while agriculture can provide one of the greatest employment opportunities for this growing population, youth often perceive agriculture as backwards and underdeveloped. However, with promising examples from around the globe, technology holds potential in attracting this rapidly urbanizing youth population to the agriculture sector.

The upcoming ‘Youth in Agriculture Case Study’ will explore and describe some of these real-life examples in detail–don’t miss it, sign up here.

Whether using a feature phone or smartphone to connect directly with sellers and input suppliers or facilitating enterprise certification and transparent land ownership, technology has the potential to make farming more financially rewarding, support continued investment along the agriculture value chain and promote an image of agriculture as an innovative business opportunity. The ability for farmers to access market conditions is the greatest impact technology can have for agriculture, some conference panelists noted. mSTAR has been working on this issue through our Digital Farmer Profiles: Reimagining Smallholder Agriculture report, which dives into detail on the use of farmer profile data to improve product and service offerings, using data to cater to the nuanced needs of farmers, ensuring market transparency and providing improved inputs. mSTAR’s other guides like Guide to the Use of Digital Financial Services in Agriculture and Using Digital Tools to Expand Access to Agricultural Insurance show readers how technology can enhance the ag sector.

The Georgetown Conference is further evidence that Africa’s future is firmly in the hands of Africans. While challenges persist, innovative thinkers are working to create viable solutions to age-old problems and allow their communities to grow into the modern, global economy. While the image presented at the conference was a hopeful one, according to many speakers, the key to continued growth includes the acceptance of the CFTA to expand intra-African trade, the reduction of harmful trade policies and harnessing the full potential of digital technology.

Nina Getachew is a Program Officer for FHI 360’s Mobile Solutions, Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project. Nina has worked with donors and private partners to implement activities in the areas of ICT4D, responsible use of data and data for decision making. She graduated with a BA in international development with a focus on Middle East and North Africa regional policies from the School of International Service at American University. Prior to FHI 360, Nina was an assistant data analyst at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) providing support to ensure the quality and functionality of the national standardized test software for AIR’s user base. She is an avid traveler and loves photography.  

Conor Farrell has been working in international development for four years, bringing a passion for finding and supporting innovative solutions to address global issues. At FHI 360, he works as Program Officer on the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research project that seeks to increase access to and use of mobile and digital technologies around the world. Prior to joining FHI 360, Conor worked as a Community Economic Development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Costa Rica, supporting grassroots efforts to increase economic participation and opportunity in the Caribbean town of Linea Vieja.

 

How Digital Financial Services Support Financial Protection and Universal Health Coverage: Opportunities for Global Health Programs

By Amani M’Bale, Abigail Manz, and Ankunda Kariisa

Every year, about 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty because of out-of-pocket health expenditures. Moreover, 800 million people will spend more than 10% of their household budget on health expenses.

Financial protection is at the core of universal health coverage (UHC) and is achieved when all people and communities can use the health services they need, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship. Effective global health programs seek to strengthen financial protection by ensuring direct payments for health expenses that do not threaten living standards or push people into extreme poverty; these programs capitalize on technology platforms to help users save, receive and make payments more efficiently.

Digital financial services (DFS) merges the growing ubiquity of digital technology with evolving business models to deliver financial services. DFS, in particular mobile money, has been found to help poor individuals and households guard against financial hardship by facilitating access to remittances, savings, insurance, subsidies and payments. The growing reach of mobile technology in resource constrained settings creates an opportunity for global health programs to use these innovations to advance health outcomes. DFS can provide financial protection for vulnerable people and communities by helping to ensure prepayment, through the use of digitally enabled health savings accounts, and by pooling resources for health, through the use of digital health insurance products. DFS can also support human resources for health by digitizing government salary payments to healthcare workers, thus guaranteeing on-time and rapid delivery of payments and reducing a common risk of strikes.

Mobile Money Growth Markets: An Opportunity for Global Health Programs

With over 866 million registered accounts worldwide, mobile money, a prominent DFS channel, is now available in two-thirds of low- and middle-income countries and has contributed to the decline of people who are traditionally financially excluded and often exposed to catastrophic health expenditures.

Notably, global health programs in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and East Asia/Pacific operate within dynamic mobile money markets where active accounts and transaction volumes are growing at an accelerated rate, thus presenting an opportunity to leverage private sector investment in digital technology to support health initiatives. As of December 2018, in sub-Saharan Africa, there were 145.8 million active mobile money accounts transacting 26.8 billion USD per year; in South Asia, there were 89.3 million active accounts transacting 8.8 billion USD per year; and in East Asia/Pacific, where mobile money markets grew by 41% over the course of a year, there were 29.8 M active accounts transacting 3.7 billion USD per year

“Now processing over $1.3 billion a day, the mobile money industry added a record 143 million registered customers in 2018.”

GSMA State of the Industry Report 2018

Private sector companies, such as Mobile Network Operators, are responding to market growth by expanding telecommunication coverage, offering more products, including mobile financial services, and lowering costs as they reach scale. This environment represents opportunities for global health programs to work with the private sector to customize products, services and solutions which support health systems, especially at decentralized locations, individuals and households.

DFS Supports Health Insurance Expansion: Telenor Health Example

In June 2016, Telenor Group’s subsidiary Telenor Health launched a mobile-based health and wellness service platform called Tonic for customers of its local Bangladesh-based operator Grameenphone. Its initial package included free health information, insurance, and telemedicine services. In April 2017, Telenor unveiled a three-tiered package that modifies existing free services delivered to their customers: Tonic Free, Tonic Advanced (approximately $1.53 USD monthly), and Tonic Premium (approximately $3.55 USD monthly).

Since launching in December 2016, Tonic has added more than 4.5 million subscribers, made more than 100,000 phone-based consultations, approved 25,000 discounts on medical services, and paid 350 claims. Telenor Health is also partnering with the Government of Bangladesh to launch an initiative to use digital technologies to facilitate health care access.

Global health program managers advising national health insurance schemes can adapt aspects of private sector business models—convenient digital payments, “freemium” pricing models, digitized claims management and payment processes, simple product constructs, and use of data for program design and management—to lower cost and improve customer uptake in health insurance schemes.

Brief: The Role of Digital Financial Services in Accelerating USAID’s Health Goals

To further explore the ways DFS can be used in health programs, USAID with support from the mSTAR program, wrote a technical brief on the role of DFS in accelerating progress towards health outcomes. The report shows that global health programs can effectively leverage DFS to help individuals and communities guard against financial hardship. Additionally, this brief demonstrates how integrating DFS into Health Systems Strengthening programs will assist USAID and its partners to advance health outcomes and support countries on their journey to self-reliance.

Abigail Manz plays a key role in accelerating the Digital Financial team’s vision through the management and sharing of key learnings and communications across the DFS community. Prior to joining the DFS team, Abigail managed the coordination of the Ebola Recovery portfolio at the U.S. Global Development Lab, providing oversight across initiatives, which focus on the use of science, technology, innovation and partnerships to improve governance, health information systems, and connectivity in the post-Ebola West Africa Region. Prior to joining the Agency, Abigail worked with entrepreneurs and innovators at the United Nations Foundation, where she supported a mobile health grant initiative geared toward improving maternal and child health through mobile technology. Abigail earned her B.A. in Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Amani M’Bale is the Digital Financial Services Advisor for the Office of Health Systems in USAID’s Bureau for Global Health. Prior to joining USAID, she served as a Chief Technical Advisor for Financial Inclusion with UNCDF. Preceding UNCDF, Amani worked with Catholic Relief Services, CARE International, and the International Rescue Committee, in financial inclusion advisory and program management roles. She has worked in multiple countries including Benin, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, and throughout East Africa. Amani holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University, School of International Affairs, and a Master of Business Administration from the IE Business School in Madrid.

Ankunda Kariisa is AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow leading the Digital Finance team’s sector integration work, with a specific focus on global health and agriculture. Ankunda also plays a key role supporting the Digital Finance team’s monitoring, evaluation and learning efforts.

Photo credit: Riaz Jamanpour / Digital Development Communications

SMS Immunization Reminders Are Great, But Digital Financial Services Can Make Them Better

By Trinity Zan

On December 12th, mSTAR and USAID are hosting the launch of a guide detailing how digital financial services can accelerate USAID health goals. If you are interested in attending the launch, please register here.

As someone who works to expand access to quality health services in low- and middle-income countries, I’ve watched mothers waiting in line at immunization clinics stare at their mobile phone screens like in any waiting room around the world. Until recently, however, I didn’t fully realize that they just might be accessing a health savings account, checking their insurance, or paying a healthcare bill. I’ve noticed how mobile phones seem nearly universal in low- and middle-income countries and how easy it is now to use mobile phones to send money, settle a bill or even pay taxi fare, yet I haven’t been as familiar with how mobile phones and digital technology can enable financial services that improve health care services.  

My colleagues at the USAID-funded and FHI 360-led Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research Project (mSTAR) have developed a forthcoming brief illustrating how digital financial services (DFS) — banking, insurance, and payment services (including savings, loans, remittances, and bill payments) that are enabled via electronic channels — can enhance and strengthen global health programs. The brief offers concrete examples in an easy-to-follow format organized around the USAID Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) Framework (which pulls directly from the WHO Health Systems Strengthening Framework). A workshop will be held on December 12 to dive into the guide and help health practitioners understand how to implement DFS in their work (email mSTAR_Project@FHI360.org to learn more or register here), but for now, here is a sneak-peak of how DFS can support two HSS components.

Human Resources

What if health workers could be paid via mobile money just as easily as you pay a bill online? In Sierra Leone, inefficient cash payment processes led to health and frontline response worker strikes during the 2014 Ebola crisis, crippling efforts to provide critical care and containment. The United Nations Capital Development Fund in collaboration with the Government of Sierra Leone’s National Ebola Response Center, implemented the Payments Program for Ebola Response Workers to digitize hazard payments for health and frontline response workers during the height of the crisis. Digital payments reached 98 percent of the 30,000 response workers (29,400 workers), saved an estimated $10 million USD in security and other costs associated with moving cash, and reduced payment time for health workers from one month to one week, preventing the loss of an estimated 800 working days and saving over 2,000 lives by eliminating response worker strikes.

Service Delivery

Could financial incentives delivered efficiently to hard-to-reach populations help improve uptake of critical health services? The Mobile Solutions for Immunization (M-SIMU) cluster-randomized controlled trial in Kenya tested whether SMS reminders and incentives motivate beneficiaries to get their children immunized. The trial successfully improved the timeliness of immunizations with SMS reminders coupled with monetary incentives delivered digitally. M-SIMU achieved these results despite the fact that over half of participants shared a mobile phone with another caregiver, demonstrating that digital payments can deliver behavior change incentives even among populations that may not own their own mobile phones.  

Could DFS help those at the bottom of the pyramid to save and pay for preventive and curative health services? Globally, micro-insurance via mobile channels is growing steadily, with 93 live services in 27 emerging markets as of 2018. Public and private insurance providers are using mobile payment channels to extend insurance to new markets and population segments. The Kenya National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) used mobile money to facilitate premium collection among informal sector populations. To accommodate the irregular incomes of informal sector workers, NHIF used M-PESA to allow incremental payments for monthly premiums, which helped reduce penalty charges for missed payments. M-PESA also lets family and friends send remittances to cover premium payments.

Similarly, a company called MicroEnsure partnered with mobile operators to provide products including their mobile-based hospital cash insurance product and scaled to 63 million enrolled customers across 11 countries within four years. The hospital cash product provides a simple cash payout for a hospital stay of three nights or more and is paid directly to the patient instead of the provider. This allows the patient to use the funds to cover non-medical expenditures such as travel costs, which can be as much as 40 percent of the total cost associated with hospitalization. The service uses a simple digital registration and digital claims processing, including using WhatsApp to submit pictures of receipts.

As digital technologies become more ubiquitous, those working in the health sector are considering their use to help improve counseling, support adherence and change behaviors. However, this new brief suggests that we should begin paying attention to how digital financial services can reduce inefficiencies and strengthen systems, thereby helping us to achieve our ultimate health goals. Register for the workshop on December 12th to learn more!

Trinity Zan, MA, has 17 years of experience working in international development in sub-Saharan and francophone Africa. As a Technical Advisor in FHI 360’s Research Utilization unit, she works on building research-to-practice linkages and promoting best practices in family planning and sexual and reproductive health. Her subject matter expertise also includes mHealth and scale-up. Trinity is a key member of the team that developed Mobile for Reproductive Health (m4RH), a mobile-phone based information service that has won several awards, including from Women Deliver and the African Development Bank. She serves as FHI 360’s lead for digital health under the USAID-funded Knowledge for Health II project. She is currently co-chair of the Global Digital Health Network.

Feature photo by Eric Podberesky/FHI 360

From Out of Reach to At Your Fingertips: How 1.4 Million Kenyans are Gaining Access to Healthcare

Digital financial services provide a way for practitioners to strengthen health programs and improve health outcomes, yet few have recognized their full value. In Kenya, where lack of money prevents two out of five people from seeking treatment, a new digital platform is helping to make healthcare affordable and accessible. Known as M-TIBA, the platform enables users to access health savings accounts and pay for insurance premiums, all at a low cost via the mobile phone. The platform has potential to offer more in the future, with the M-TIBA team currently working on an emergency loan for medical expenses. More than 1.4 million users have joined M-TIBA, with users and insurance policies growing each day.

mSTAR interviewed Kees Van Lede, CEO of CarePay Limited, the developer and administrator of M-TIBA, to illustrate how digital financial services like M-TIBA are changing the face of healthcare.

On December 12th, mSTAR and USAID are hosting the launch of a guide detailing how digital financial services can accelerate USAID health goals. If you are interested in attending the launch, please register here.

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mSTAR: In your perspective, what is role of digital financial services (DFS) in strengthening health systems and what can be done to further its use?

Kees Van Lede (KL): In Kenya, two out of every five people who need healthcare do not seek treatment because they lack the money. Nearly half of all healthcare expenditures in Kenya are paid out-of-pocket, which is a burden for millions of Kenyans. Demand for health financing solutions, such as insurance, remains low – despite massive progress over the last few years.

Digitization and mobile money, in particular, has improved access to most of what we need in terms of goods, activities and services. For a few years now, this has also been happening in healthcare. Getting access to dedicated health savings accounts, being able to pay for insurance premiums and the ability to get an emergency loan for medical expenses all have been made available at low cost to the masses via the mobile phone, enabling more and more people to take control over their health expenditure.

mSTAR: Safaricom, CarePay and PharmAccess Foundation created M-TIBA, a digital health payment platform. Can you briefly explain M-TIBA? 

KL: M-TIBA manages healthcare payments and treatment data between funders, patients and healthcare providers. M-TIBA is a proven health payments integrator, revolutionizing the management of large-scale health schemes and supporting the drive for universal health coverage in Africa. Individuals are using their mobiles phones to save money for treatment and pay for health services and health insurance such as the NHIF (Kenya’s public health insurance agency) through the M-TIBA platform. M-TIBA can also be used by its members to transparently identify the care that can be accessed, and at what price, through a simple app that works on any phone (including non-smartphones). M-TIBA is also used by healthcare providers to submit medical claims digitally, allowing insurers to efficiently review and pay out claims even within a day after the treatment. The enrollment, financial and medical data gathered in all the outlined steps is then shared with key stakeholders in customized dashboards and reports, giving valuable insights into disease patterns, costs of treatment and health seeking behavior. M-TIBA now has 1.4 million users and is growing by thousands of new users and insurance policies a day.

PharmAccess and Safaricom are founding partners in creating M-TIBA. PharmAccess acts as  a thought leader in innovation on demand-side and supply-side financing and in improving the quality of healthcare in Africa, while Safaricom is the leading mobile telecommunications company in Kenya and has demonstrated market leadership in mobile payment services under their M-PESA brand. CarePay is the developer and administrator of the M-TIBA platform.

mSTAR: What are some of the major challenges and successes of M-TIBA? 

KL: M-TIBA has helped build improved insights into healthcare usage and the quality of delivery thereby changing behaviors amongst vulnerable and indigent groups by sensitizing them to making small, regular payments towards a health-financing scheme.

To date, more than 850 healthcare providers have been activated on the platform and a further 1,400 providers contracted. M-TIBA partners have recorded over 273,282 visits and paid out over Kshs. 476,453,810.

Despite the successful results, savings still present major challenges for individuals. A significant share of the population has no sufficient income to allocate savings regularly towards their health. There is also the fact that some individuals remain averse to using funds they feel are for a speculative need while they have other immediate needs for the money. With the help of the behavioral economists from the Center for Advanced Hindsight of Duke University, we are constantly trying to “nudge” people to do the right thing, despite these challenges described.

mSTAR: In developing countries, healthcare inclusion can be a challenge. How do you believe M-TIBA and other DFS systems can increase health care inclusion for low- and middle- income households?

KL: M-TIBA is transforming how low- and middle-income Kenyans are paying for and accessing healthcare. M-TIBA builds trust that resources are being spent for the right person, for the right care, at the right place, at the right time, at low transaction costs.

With the majority of Kenyans excluded from mainstream health insurance schemes, M-TIBA empowers them to take care of their own healthcare. It is providing long-term benefits to individual customers and the entire healthcare sector.

Users of M-TIBA can save for medical care and pay for and manage their insurance policy in a user-friendly way. For instance, we send regular reminders to people to pay their premium on time and make it a very simple process on their mobile phone to do so. They can also send healthcare funds from their own M-PESA accounts into the M-TIBA account of their dependents, specifically for healthcare needs. The platform channels funds for health services directly to recipients through the mobile platform, allowing them to track and monitor the use of funds effectively.

CarePay is working with a range of health financers on the M-TIBA platform, including government insurance agencies (e.g., NHIF), private insurance companies and brokers (e.g., AON/Minet, UAP), to develop applications for medical payments, remittances, savings and insurance. By working with public and private insurers alike, we aim to have the largest impact across all income groups in the population.

mSTAR: What do you see as the emerging trends in DFS and health?

KL: We truly believe that mobile phone is the key to not only unlock more pre-payments and risk pooling for healthcare in emerging markets, but also to build constant and engaging relationships between payers (public and private health insurers, but also donors) and their members/beneficiaries. If we get this combination of risk pooling and customer engagement right, we can both stimulate and even financially reward healthy behavior, while decreasing healthcare costs for the payer at the same time.

And the most exciting thing for us at CarePay is that, just like Africa led the way when it came to mobile payments, now Africa again may be able to leapfrog the developed world when it comes to such breakthrough innovations in mobile technology.

mSTAR and USAID will be releasing more blogs on the power of digital financial services to strengthen health outcomes. Stay tuned to learn creative ways health practitioners can implement digital financial services in their programming.

Website and Additional Links

• For more on M-TIBA – www.mtiba.com
• For more on CarePay – www.carepay.co.ke
• For more on PharmAccess – www.pharmaccess.org
• For more on Safaricom – www.safaricom.co.ke
• M-TIBA customer interview – Saving lives in Kenya every day #CaseForChange
• CNBC article – Meet the three African businesses to make the 2018 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers’ list
• Healthcare Global – The M-Tiba app is revolutionising healthcare in Kenya
• TechMoran article – M-tiba hits 920,000 users | Wins FT/IFC Transformational Business Award

Kees Van Lede is a Co-Founder of CarePay and has worked extensively in Africa and Europe in the FMCG and technology sectors. Prior to becoming CEO, Kees was the Chief Commercial Officer at Carepay. Kees was previously the mHealth (mobile health) Director of PharmAccess Foundation. In that position he led the organization’s mHealth activities in Kenya and the incubation of CarePay. Kees has also worked for Guidion and Unilever. He holds a Master’s degree in Applied Physics from Delft Technical University and an MBA from INSEAD Business School, France.