ICT in Economic Development: Focus on Value Chains
Nov 02, 2014
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