ICT as Business Development Service

ICT in Economic Development: Focus

on Value Chains

Livelihoods and chains

Actors in and around Value Chains

Present ICT based VC services in C4C funded project:

• Co-ordination within producer organizations (Kenya, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Mali), or

• between producer organization and buyer(s) (Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali)

• Certification (Zambia (Organic Export), Bolivia (Local Organic, aided with GPS) and Quality management (Burkina Faso)

• Access to Crop Protection information (Bolivia, Kenya)• Marketing (Peru, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso)

Successful market based ICT projects (according to Hystra)

• Focused on customers’ ability and willingness to pay, rather than on identified social needs and supposed demand.

• Built from the ground-up through a trial and error, flexibly evolving based on end-user feedback.

• Capturing adequate share of customer’s mind and wallet (through a related set of services) to recoup investment and to minimize marketing expenses once an ICT channel is built.

• A wide range of services, combining varied revenue streams. ICT4D is a low price-high volume market, with unit price of each service in the order of magnitude of a few cents to a few dollars at best.

Some basic guidelines on market conformity:

• focus on changing processes and behavior and not just solving identified problems

• avoid taking up functions that are part of the business cycle (i.e. take care not to substitute local entrepreneurs)

• work with existing commercial initiatives and do not establish new marketing channels that are not sustainable, even if they offer fairer terms for farmers during the project life span

• do not set up interventions which compete with existing business and other services, unless you are very sure about their viability and sustainability

• address market imperfections and withdraw when markets function

ICT service transactions. Provider-Customer relation?

PARTNER VANONDERNEMENDE MENSEN