Mobile Applications for

Agriculture and Rural Development

Christine Zhenwei Qiang, Siou Chew Kuek*,

Andrew Dymond and Steve Esselaar

ICT Sector Unit

World Bank

May 2012

This report is the product of the staff and consultants of the World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and
conclusions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments
they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work.

* Corresponding author: 1818 H Street NW, MSN MC6-616, Washington DC 20433, USA. [email protected]
Contents 

Foreword .......................................................................................................................................... i 
Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... ii 
About the Authors .......................................................................................................................... iii 
Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. v 
Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... vi 
1.  Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 
What Are Mobile Applications? ................................................................................................. 1 
This Report’s Scope, Audience, and Focus ................................................................................ 5 
2.  Methodology and Case Selection............................................................................................ 7 
Typology ..................................................................................................................................... 7 
Case Studies ................................................................................................................................ 8 
3.  Development Impact ............................................................................................................. 14 
Quantitative Impact ................................................................................................................... 17 
Qualitative Impact ..................................................................................................................... 25 
4.  Mobile Ecosystems ............................................................................................................... 26 
Key Players ............................................................................................................................... 27 
Platform..................................................................................................................................... 30 
Highly Local Content and Services .......................................................................................... 33 
5.  Business Models ................................................................................................................... 35 
Sustainability............................................................................................................................. 36 
Willingness to Pay .................................................................................................................... 38 
Revenue..................................................................................................................................... 39 
Typical revenue streams ....................................................................................................... 39 
Alternative revenue streams .................................................................................................. 42 
Pricing Models .......................................................................................................................... 43 
Nonchargeable model ........................................................................................................... 44 
Transactional model ............................................................................................................. 44 
Embedded services model ..................................................................................................... 45 
Freemium model ................................................................................................................... 45 
 Costs.......................................................................................................................................... 46 
Financing................................................................................................................................... 49 
Different funding issues for commercial and noncommercial mobile applications ............. 51 
Financing forms, types, and cycles ....................................................................................... 52 
Possible financing solutions ................................................................................................. 53 
6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 58 
Annex A: Typology of Agricultural and Rural Development ...................................................... 61 
Annex B: Information Sheet Used for Desk Research on Mobile Applications .......................... 63 
Annex C: Types of Mobile Applications by Subsector ................................................................ 64 
Annex D: Mobile Applications Ecosystem for Agricultural and Rural Development ................. 84 
Annex E: Summary of Lessons by Subsector ............................................................................... 88 
Annex F: Detailed Case Study Information Sheets ...................................................................... 94 
Annex G: Kenya Case Study ........................................................................................................ 94 
Annex H: Philippines Case Study ................................................................................................. 94 
Annex I: Sri Lanka Case Study ..................................................................................................... 94 
References ..................................................................................................................................... 95 

Boxes

Box 3.1: Virtual City’s AgriManagr—Automating Tea Purchases in Kenya .............................. 16 
Box 3.2: Kenya’s Kilimo Salama Microinsurance Product .......................................................... 24 
Box 4.1: Virtual City: The Challenges of Working Without a Platform ...................................... 32 

Figures

Figure 1: Results Generated by Mobile Applications for Agricultural and Rural Development . vii 
Figure 2: Stages of Business Development for the Applications Studied ..................................... xi 
Figure 3: Sources of Financing for the Applications Studied ...................................................... xiv 
Figure 1.1: Global Mobile Subscriber Base (In Million, 2009-16) ................................................ 1 
Figure 1.2: Forecast of Global Mobile Phone Use by Type, 2015 ................................................. 5 
Figure 2.1: Subsector Distribution of the Applications Studied ..................................................... 8 
Figure 2.2: Number of M-ARD Apps Identified by Country ......................................................... 9 
Figure 3.1: The Results Generated by Mobile Applications for Agricultural and Rural
Development ................................................................................................................................. 17 
Figure 4.2: Ecosystem Platform .................................................................................................... 33 
Figure B4.1.1: Virtual City Ecosystem ......................................................................................... 32 
Figure 5.1: Mobile Applications by Business Development Stage .............................................. 36 
Figure 5.2: Mobile Applications by Type and Stage .................................................................... 37 
Figure 5.3: Mobile Applications by Revenue Source ................................................................... 40 
Figure 5.4: Sources of Financing for Mobile Applications .......................................................... 51 

Tables

Table 1.1: Global Market for Mobile Apps, 2008-12 ..................................................................... 3 

Table 2.1: Subsectors and Segments of the Mobile Applications Studied ................................... 11 
Table 3.1: Benefits of Various Mobile Applications .................................................................... 19 
Table 4.1: M-app Ecosystems in Developing and Developed Countries ..................................... 26 
Table 5.1: Rationale for Fees and Revenue Streams for Mobile Applications ............................. 40 
Table 5.2: Mobile Applications by Pricing Model ....................................................................... 44 
Table 5.3: Sample Commercial Mobile Applications with Low Costs ........................................ 46 
Table 5.4: Sample Commercial Mobile Applications with High Costs........................................ 48 
Table 5.5: Sample Costs for Noncommercial Mobile Applications ............................................. 49 
Table 5.6: Forms, Types, and Sources of Financing for the Applications Studied ...................... 53 
Foreword

The dynamic growth of mobile communications technology is creating opportunities for

economic growth, social empowerment, and grassroots innovation in developing countries. One
of the areas with the greatest potential impact is in the contribution that mobile applications can
make to agricultural and rural development (ARD), by providing access to information, markets,
and services to millions of rural inhabitants. For both agricultural supply and demand, mobile
phones can reduce waste, make delivery more efficient, and forge closer links between farmers
and consumers.

This report provides policymakers and development practitioners with a guide that facilitates the
development and deployment of mobile applications for ARD. It also informs their
understanding of the key drivers for promoting such applications and services in their countries.

The report reviews country examples and extracts policy lessons and good practices. It also
presents detailed studies of cases from Kenya, Philippines, and Sri Lanka, as well as summarizes
92 case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America (available at
http://www.worldbank.org/ict/m-ard). The goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of
the development impact, ecosystem, and business models for mobile applications in ARD. The
report is intended to complement the recent ICT in Agriculture eSourcebook (available at
http://www.ictinagriculture.org).

It is our hope that this volume will help ARD policymakers and development practitioners more
effectively harness mobile applications to generate economic and social opportunities with
lasting impacts.

Jose Luis Irigoyen Juergen Voegele

Director, Transport, Water and Information and Director, Agriculture and Rural Development
Communications Technologies The World Bank
Sustainable Development Network
The World Bank

Page i
Acknowledgments

This report was prepared by a team comprising Christine Zhenwei Qiang and Siou Chew Kuek
of the World Bank’s ICT Sector Unit and Andrew Dymond and Steve Esselaar of Intelecon. The
report has benefitted significantly from the inputs, ideas, and reviews of consultants, policy
experts, industry leaders, and World Bank colleagues and management. The authors are grateful
for the valuable guidance and support of World Bank management throughout the preparation of
this report, especially Jose Luis Irigoyen, Director of the Transport, Water, and ICT Department;
Philippe Dongier, Manager of the ICT Unit; and Valerie D’Costa, Manager of the Information
for Development Program (infoDev).

The authors would also like to thank numerous expert practitioners for their reviews and
comments. In particular, the authors are grateful to World Bank colleagues Vikas Choudhary,
Grahame Dixie, Madhur Gautam, Aparajita Goyal, Matthias Grueninger, Naomi Halewood, Tim
Kelly, Yong Hyun Kwon, Samia Melhem, Eija Pehu, Sandra Sargent, Shobha Shetty, and
Masatake Yamamichi. In addition, the authors are grateful to Sarah Bartlett and Mark Davis of
Esoko, Jean-Pierre Auffret of George Mason University, Sean Krepp and Heather Thorne of the
Grameen Foundation, Jim Jaffe of the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds
(NASVF), Alfredo Sfeir Camarena of Shellcatch, Jatin Singh of Skymet, and David Metcalf and
David Rogers of the University of Central Florida.

The authors would also like to thank Paul Holtz for his editorial support, Denis Largeron for
assistance with the webpage, and Marta Lucila Priftis for excellent administrative support.

This report has been generously funded by the Korean Trust Fund (KTF) on
Information and Communications for Development (IC4D). The KTF is a
partnership between the government of the Republic of Korea and the
World Bank. Its purpose is to advance the ICT4D agenda, with the goal of
contributing to growth and reducing poverty in developing countries.

Page ii
About the Authors

Christine Zhenwei Qiang is a manager in the World Bank’s Investment Climate Department. Her
main responsibilities include ICT policy and strategy development and design, preparation, and
supervision of information infrastructure projects in Asia. She has written and published a
number of articles and book chapters on ICT and development, with a focus on policy. Her areas
of expertise include ICT for development, telecommunications reform, growth, poverty, and
investment climate. She has a Ph.D. in economics and an M.S.E. in computer science and
engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in German language and literature
from China’s International Studies University.

Siou Chew Kuek is a policy specialist with the World Bank’s ICT Sector Unit. He focuses on
policy and operational work with client countries in the South Asia, Middle East and North
Africa regions; and his areas of expertise include e-government and ICT industry development.
He is also involved in the unit’s global analytical and knowledge agenda, and has co-authored
various publications on ICT for development. Prior to joining the World Bank, he spent about
ten years in the private sector, where he worked in a business development, consulting, and
implementation capacity on IT projects for multinational corporate clients in Asia. He holds a
bachelor’s degree in management studies from the University of London and a master’s in
international development from American University.

Andrew Dymond is a senior telecommunications economist, market & policy strategist and
engineer. His experience focuses mostly on regional and rural access network, service and
application development in emerging markets and his education includes a Masters in
Development Economics. He is a recognised expert in both the private sector commercialisation
and regulation of rural ICT access, Internet services, mobile applications and issues related to the
“digital divide”. He has led many of Intelecon’s projects to assist countries to establish universal
access and service funds, in Africa, Asia and Latin America - as well as recent work on mobile
banking. In the course of his career, Andrew has worked for public and private sector
organizations. He is the founder and managing director of Intelecon Research and Consultancy
Limited and has also worked as Director International for Deloitte Consulting and for BT
Telconsult, London.

Steve Esselaar is an experienced policy and regulatory consultant, specialising in

telecommunications services for emerging markets and developing countries. With his
background of a Masters in Business Administration, Mr. Esselaar has been a key consultant in
several projects around the world, including mobile money and applications; small business and
household surveys; and eGovernment projects. He is a principal consultant with Intelecon
Research & Consultancy Ltd. Prior to Intelecon, Mr. Esselaar was employed as an advisor to
Council at the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the sector

Page iii
specific regulatory authority for South Africa, where he advised on competition and economic
policy issues.

Page iv
Abbreviations

2G Second generation (mobile communications)

3G Third generation (mobile communications)
4G Fourth generation (mobile communications)
API Application Programming Interface
B2B Business to Business
CSR Corporate Social Responsibility
DFID Department for International Development
EDGE Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution
FMCG Fast Moving Consumer Goods
GGS Govi Gnana Seva
ICT Information and Communication Technology
ICTA Information and Communication Technology Agency
IFC International Finance Corporation
IKSL IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd
KACE Kenya Agriculture Commodities Exchange
KTDA Kenya Tea Production Authority
LTE 3GPP Long Term Evolution
m-apps Mobile applications
m-ARD apps Mobile Applications for Agriculture and Rural Development
m-money Mobile Money
NGO Nongovernmental Organization
NHS National Healthcare System
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OLT Ovi Life Tools
PE/VC Private Equity/Venture Capital
PPP Private-Public Partnership
PWC PricewaterhouseCoopers
RFP Request for Proposal
RML Reuters Market Light
SME Small and medium-size Enterprise
SMS Short Message Service
SWORB Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Risks, Benefits
TOR Terms of Reference
USF Universal Service Fund
USSD Unstructured Supplementary Service Data

Page v
Executive Summary

Mobile communications technology has quickly become the world’s most common way of
transmitting voice, data, and services in the developing world. Given this dramatic change,
mobile applications (m-apps) in general and mobile applications for agricultural and rural
development (m-ARD apps) in particular hold significant potential for advancing development.
They could provide the most affordable ways for millions of people to access information,
markets, finance, and governance systems previously unavailable to them.

M-apps are software designed to take advantage of mobile technology and can be developed for
technology besides mobile phones. But mobile phones have many key advantages: affordability,
wide ownership, voice communications, and instant and convenient service delivery. As a result,
there has been a global explosion in the number of m-apps, facilitated by the rapid evolution of
mobile networks and by the increasing functions and falling prices of mobile handsets. M-apps
are markedly different in developing countries because they typically run on second-generation
(2G) phones rather than smartphones, which are far more common in developed countries.

Though there have been many studies on the mobile revolution, there is a lack of systematic
trend analyses, in-depth case studies, and assessments of experiences with m-ARD apps in
developing countries. Thus this report examines their development impact, ecosystems, and
business models to provide an analytical framework for policymakers and development
practitioners. The framework is designed to help them understand how these applications can be
used to improve services for rural residents in these countries and support enabling environments
for innovative m-ARD apps.

The report summarizes a study of 92 m-ARD apps in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the
Caribbean (Annex F; detailed information sheets for each app are available at
http://www.worldbank.org/ict/m-ard). It also presents the findings of 15 detailed case studies of
such apps in Kenya, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka (Annexes G, H, and I). This type of report
faces several challenges. M-apps are evolving rapidly, with innovative new ones entering the
market daily and several large institutional players—such as mobile network operators—
competing for market share. Moreover, m-ARD apps are relatively new, and many have not been
around long enough to properly assess their success.

Development Impact

Most m-ARD apps focus on improving agriculture supply chain integration and have a wide
range of functions, such as providing market information, increasing access to extension services,
and facilitating market links. Users are also diverse, including farmers, produce buyers,
cooperatives, input suppliers, content providers, and other stakeholders who demand useful,

Page vi
 affordable services. These supply chain integration applications could provide significant
economic and social benefits—among them, creating jobs, adding value, reducing product losses,
and making developing countries more globally competitive. But the potential development
impact of m-ARD apps mainly lies in their ability to provide access to useful, relevant
information and services (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Results Generated by Mobile Applications for Agricultural and Rural

Development 
Higher prices, produce
Better access to Market information
in greater demand
information
Climate and disease Better disaster and risk
information management
Higher incomes for
Better access to Good agricultural Higher-yield production small farmers
extension services practices

Extension services More accurate

assessments of pasture Lower transaction,
health logistical, and
Better market links Direct links between
Less exploitation by distribution costs for
and distribution farmers, suppliers, and
middlemen input suppliers
networks buyers
More efficient
distribution chains

Improved traceability
Increased efficiency and
and quality standards for
predictability
Better recording, buyers
accounting, and Reduced administrative
traceability costs
Reduced fraud
Better access to Credit New opportunities for
finance financial institutions
Higher yields, more
Insurance
diverse production,
fewer losses
Payment methods

Source: Authors’ Analysis.

Quantitatively, the most widely used m-ARD apps provide access to valuable information—a
crucial function because asymmetrical access to information is a weakness of rural markets in
developing countries. Kenyan farmers who use the app DrumNet, for example, have seen their
incomes rise by a third due to the service’s comprehensive system of price negotiation,
contracting, and other value chain support.

Page vii
M-ARD apps also provide farmers and rural residents with timely access to extension services,
such as advice on agricultural production, marketing, and technology, food security, and
nutrition. Sri Lanka’s e-Dairy helps farmers earn up to $262 more a year for each of their calves
by providing veterinary and extension services delivered by mobile phones. Such applications
also strengthen market links when used to improve production distribution and traceability. Tea
growers in Kenya have reported average income growth of 9 percent—about $300 a year—by
using Virtual City’s production measuring, recording, and traceability functions.

In addition, m-ARD apps have expanded access to finance and insurance products in rural areas.
Applications like M-PESA in Kenya and SMART Money and G-Cash in the Philippines have
gained acceptance as safe, easy ways to receive payments and store money. Also in Kenya, users
of Kilimo Salama’s agricultural insurance products have seen their production increase by an
average of more than 50 percent, or about $150 a year.

M-ARD apps also have significant qualitative impact, though such benefits are harder to assess
objectively and largely depend on the local context. For example, Ushahidi—developed in
Kenya and now used in other countries—uses a crowdsourcing approach to increase government
transparency, provide information about domestic events (including social unrest), and support
timely interventions in disaster-hit areas, such as in in Haiti after its disastrous 2010 earthquake.

Application Ecosystems

This report uses James Moore’s (1996) revised definition of ecosystems: economic communities
based on interacting organizations and individuals. The report identifies a wide range of players
in the ecosystem for m-ARD apps, such as mobile network operators, m-app providers, content
providers, and various types of users. Each player’s assets, abilities, and incentives are described
in Annex D.

M-ARD app ecosystems in developing countries are fragile and need support from policymakers
and development practitioners. There are marked differences between the m-ARD app
ecosystems of developed and developing countries, especially in terms of the differing influences
of key players, existence and sophistication of m-ARD app platforms, and need for hyper-local
services and support systems.

Roles and influence of key players

Mobile network operators dominate the m-ARD apps ecosystem in developing countries. They
serve as gatekeepers, deciding which m-apps are allowed in their systems and dictating how
revenues from the apps are shared. Kenya’s Safaricom, for example, charges users up to 85
percent of the revenue from m-app transactions. In contrast, m-app providers in developed
countries can choose whether to sell their apps through Apple’s App Store or Google’s Android

Page viii
Market—or both—and receive much larger shares of the revenue. For example, m-app providers
on Apple’s App Store receive 70 percent on both app sales and transactions; final shares on the
Android Market have not been established.

In developing countries, government departments are likely to be key content providers. Some
governments, such as Kenya’s, are following the lead of developed country governments by
making data publicly available that can be used innovatively by m-ARD app providers.

In some developing countries, governments are the only viable source of data for m-ARD app
providers due to a lack of commercial information providers. But such data can be unreliable or
collected irregularly. Some m-ARD app providers have created market research units to provide
users with valuable information. In India Reuters Market Light (RML) has established teams that
monitor commodity prices in local markets.

Users of m-ARD apps include a wide variety of groups. Unlike in the developed world, users in
the developing world demand hyper-local content. For example, agricultural prices must be
sourced from local and regional markets so that farmers can compare prices and decide where to
sell their produce.

There is also a burgeoning movement to collect information about users through innovative m-
apps such as Kenya’s Jana (formerly txteagle). This information can be used to provide users
with better, more useful, and more relevant information. Content providers have also been
innovative in their use of media and crowdsourcing to support their operations. Kenya’s KACE
provides information to commercial radio stations to complement its m-ARD app, and Ushahidi
uses crowdsourcing to collect information of relevance to users.

Platforms
Platforms—that is, app stores—are the most important m-apps innovation in developed countries
because they offer an operator-neutral platform that promotes innovation, encourage uniform
application development standards, and provide a large pool of potential customers who are
already connected. Platforms are even more important for m-apps in developing countries
because they can offer a payment mechanism for users through mobile network operators (as
with M-PESA). This mechanism removes a critical obstacle for m-app providers and users in the
absence of other types of payment systems.

Platforms can also facilitate transactions between consumers and companies or institutions that
see opportunities to market their products to rural consumers. Examples include banks,
microinsurance companies, agricultural cooperatives, and suppliers and distributors of fast-
moving consumer goods. All these platform features can generate faster and higher returns for
m-app providers.

Page ix
Nokia’s Ovi Life Tools (OLT) is a highly promising platform for m-ARD app providers. For
example, operator billing through OLT is available in 42 countries. In addition, the platform is
geared toward narrowband, affordable m-apps. OLT has a large user base in many large
developing countries, including China, India, and Indonesia.

An alternative platform, still in its beta phase, is BlueVia from Spain’s Telefonica. Thus it was
developed by a mobile network operator instead of an operator-neutral handset manufacturer or
mobile operating system developer. BlueVia is similar to OLT in terms of platform functions,
but m-app providers only have access to Telefonica subscribers because the platform is not
integrated with competing mobile network operators.

Hyper-local services and support

Information provided by m-ARD apps must be highly localized to be of value to rural users in
developing countries. For example, farmers attach much higher value to RML’s services in India
than those provided by IFFCO Kisan Sanchar because RML’s information is much more relevant
to their needs. But collecting hyper-local information is costly. Again, governments could
support the development of m-ARD apps that provide such information by making government
data public.

Because consumer education and literacy are usually low in rural areas, local support for m-apps
is a critical driver of their adoption and an integral cost of marketing them. Uganda’s Grameen
Community Knowledge Worker Initiative used literate, village-based intermediaries to provide
support and information to poor residents—an approach considered essential to its success.

Business Models

Business models are the systems that organizations use to create, deliver, and capture value. This
report defines the concept of value for commercial m-ARD apps as their ability to earn enough
profits to operate for at least the next two years. For noncommercial m-apps the concept is
defined as providing nonmonetary benefits greater than the costs of providing them to targeted
users.

In terms of services, commercial m-ARD apps typically deliver information or conduct

transactions (or both), while noncommercial ones typically only provide information. It is
difficult to assess business models for noncommercial m-apps due to the lack of a business
approach by governments and donors. Specifically, the lack of a profit motive means that many
noncommercial m-apps suffer from a lack of clear goals. Impact assessments and cost-benefit
analyses can sharpen this lack of focus.

Page x
This report breaks down the 92 m-ARD apps studied into three stages of business development:
the pilot stage, where concepts are being proven, usually with small target markets; stage 1,
where m-ARD apps are being scaled up and trying to enter new markets; and stage 2,
sustainability—defined as the requirement to be profitable or break even for commercial m-ARD
apps, and continued donor or government funding for noncommercial ones.

Only 16 percent of the m-ARD apps studied have achieved sustainability (Figure 2). Most are
facing challenges scaling up after successful pilots, with different challenges for commercial and
noncommercial applications. Slightly more commercial than noncommercial applications fail
between stages 1 and 2, even though sustainability is defined very differently for each type.

Figure 2: Stages of Business Development for the Applications Studied

60%

51%
50%

40%
33%

30%

20% 16%

10%

0%
Pilot - Proof of concept stage Stage 1 - Scalability stage Stage 2 - Sustainability stage

Source: Authors’ analysis.

Population size does not appear to be a major determinant of sustainability. More relevant factors
include the size of the target market, customers’ ability and willingness to pay, and the focus and
usefulness of the services offered.

Willingness to pay and revenue

Willingness to pay reflects the demand for m-ARD apps because many commercial services are
still not easily affordable because they have not achieved economies of scale. In addition, from a
development perspective it might be nearsighted to focus on ability to pay because it ignores the
poorer population who could benefit the most from such services.

Evidence on willingness to pay is mixed. Experiences in many countries suggest that farmers are
willing to pay basic or even premium SMS charges. But that willingness heavily depends on the
farmers’ incomes, education levels, and the services provided. Poorly educated farmers are less
willing to pay even basic charges—especially if the benefits of using a service take a long time

Page xi
to appear. Users are more willing to pay for a mix of tools and relevant information, such as
those offered by platforms like OLT.

Securing sufficient revenue is still a challenge for most providers of m-ARD apps. Only 29
percent of the applications studied receive enough revenue to cover operating expenses; the rest
are partly or entirely dependent on government, donor or corporate social responsibility (CSR)
funding. The most common revenue stream is a share of SMS revenue, though on average
providers receive less than 18 percent of their revenue from this source. One strategy to
overcome this obstacle is to use a freemium pricing model (see below). Charging for each
transaction can also be successful, as with Kenya’s Kazi560, which provides job information.

Providers must develop a creative mix of revenue streams while taking into account the
affordability of services. The report describes various types of fees and the rationales for them.
These include fees for user sign-up, information access, transactions, advertising, and data
collection. Because disposable income is limited in rural areas of developing countries, an
innovative alternative advertising model is being developed. This model takes advantage of
information asymmetry and scale, as with Jana’s use of crowdsourcing to collect data for
companies interested in rural consumers, providing information about these customers not
available from other sources.

Pricing models
The report identifies four main pricing models for m-ARD apps:
 The nonchargeable model generally does not charge users. These are typically
noncommercial services that provide basic information, such as Sri Lanka’s 1919
Government Information Center and Kenya’s Ushahidi.
 The transaction-based model charges users based on the number of transactions they
make. These m-ARD apps typically provide hyper-local, value added information, as
with Virtual City (Kenya) and RML (India).
 The embedded services model provides a service for no charge, but it does so to generate
demand or strengthen customer loyalty to the provider’s main, chargeable product or
service. This model often requires creating a new market and so has significant potential,
as shown by Kilimo Salama.
 The freemium model offers basic services at no charge as a marketing or promotional
tool but charges a premium for advanced and value added services. This model can help
introduce applications, build trust, and facilitate upselling. Only a few of the applications
studied use this model, including KACE (Kenya) and Manobi (Ghana and Senegal).

Some of these models might overlap, and some providers use them in combination.

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Costs
The report analyzes a range of m-ARD apps for which cost data are available. For commercial
applications, capital and operation costs are compared with user and transaction targets to assess
affordability. Analysis of KACE, b2bpricenow.com (Philippines), and RML shows that
providing useful information is costly. For example, RML’s operating cost per user is $4. High
costs result in a tradeoff between providing local information and achieving scalability because
more local research units are required to collect data as an application’s market expands. This
means that costs rise at the same rate as new subscribers sign up. Accordingly, some providers
use the freemium model to increase user volume so that they can build to scale.

The analysis also shows that operating costs are much higher for some m-ARD apps, such as
DrumNet and e-Dairy. For example, the DrumNet pilot’s operating cost per user is $45. Costs
are high because these applications cannot benefit from economies of scale in their pilot stages
and because they lack a modular approach to system development. DrumNet, for example,
provided full supply chain integration services from the outset instead of building a modular
system like KACE and Virtual City.

Noncommercial providers have much lower operating costs per transaction. For example, the
Philippines’s TXT CSC has an operating cost of just $0.02 a user. This is largely due to the
simple, information-only services provided by such applications.

Financing
Government, donor, or corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding covers the startup and
operating costs of 85 percent of the m-ARD apps studied (figure 3), and there is a major
financing gap between the pilot stage and stage 1 (scalability). This gap cuts across the case
studies from Kenya, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka and is true for both successful and less
successful applications. This gap occurs during the transition from public (donor or government)
to private funding and poses a challenge for m-ARD apps because a lack of private funding
implies that providers do not have access to the professional advice and skills needed for their
next stage of growth.

Page xiii
 Figure 3: Sources of Financing for the Applications Studied
60%
54%

50%

40%

30%

19%
20%
15%
12%

10%

0%
Governments Donors Corporate social Commercial or
responsibility private sources
programs

Source: Authors’ Analysis.

Commercial applications in developing countries generally lack access to private equity and
venture capital (PE/VC) funding because of a lack of firm clustering, limited PE/VC financing in
these countries, and weak m-app ecosystems that do not support scalability. Noncommercial m-
apps do not suffer as much from lack of finance because they are likely to continue operating as
long as there is government, donor, or CSR funding. But here too growth can be limited by lack
of sufficient financial support.

There are various ways to narrow the financing gap. Donors could create development funds for
m-apps, providing financing based on their potential for advancing development. This could be
supported by m-app labs, providing a single location for a suite of services including financing,
expert advice, and skills development.

Another approach is to create apex funds, which pool investment capital from a range of sources,
including donors and development-oriented investors. Such funds are operated by PE/VC groups
willing to accept modest returns on the investments. While there are many large funds of this
type, few offer relatively small loans ($100,000 to $500,000). Apex funds would also deliver
business advisory services to help m-apps providers scale up or expand to other markets.

A third approach is to use universal service funds (USFs) to fund m-apps. USFs exist in many
countries and typically have extensive resources due to low disbursements. But funding can be
mobilized fairly quickly. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can also help address the financing
gap. PPPs provide a framework for governments to exploit the synergies between the private and

Page xiv
privat sectors, provide access to funding and skills, and bring focus to the costs and benefits of
m-ARD apps. This is an opportune time for PPPs because innovative models for service delivery
are superseding their traditional use in infrastructure development. Text2Teach is an example of
an m-ARD app using the PPP approach, with financing from the Philippine government, Nokia,
and the Ayala Foundation.

Conclusion

M-ARD apps offer dynamic, interdisciplinary, and innovative services to rural residents in
developing countries. This report offers only a snapshot of the field’s evolution but provides
policymakers and development practitioners with insight into its significant potential.

One of the main findings is that an enabling platform (or platforms) is probably the most
important factor for the development of m-ARD apps. Platforms can facilitate interactions
among ecosystem players, increase access to users, provide technical standards, and incorporate
payment mechanisms.

The hyper-local nature of m-ARD apps makes scaling up challenging for providers. It is crucial
for providers to leverage existing information resources, and providers who can aggregate and
customize content from different sources will have an advantage. Governments and donors can
be immensely helpful by making data publicly available and ensuring that the data are as
accurate and granular as possible.

Despite various challenges, some m-ARD apps are achieving scalability, replicability, and
sustainability. Governments and donors play a critical role in helping m-ARD apps achieve
sustainability by covering initial capital costs. M-ARD apps that can achieve low operating costs
are also more likely to be sustainable.

Page xv
1. Introduction

Mobile communications technology has become the world’s most common way of transmitting
voice, data, and services, and no technology has ever spread faster. At the end of 2011 there were
almost 6 billion cellular telephone subscriptions worldwide, and the number is expected to reach
8 million by 2016 (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Global Mobile Subscriber Base (In Million, 2009-16)

Source: Portio Research 2012.

Note: Data for 2012-16 are projected.

The mobile phenomenon is especially important for developing countries because that is where it
is growing fastest, and in the next few years nearly all new mobile customers will come from
developing countries because penetration has reached saturation levels in developed countries.
Mobile phone technology has also been key to leapfrogging fixed-line Internet in developing
countries and providing mobile broadband to a growing share of people.

What Are Mobile Applications?

With mobile handsets being used in nearly every country and community, the development of
applications for them offers uses that extend well beyond voice and text communications. Mobile
applications for agricultural and rural development (m-ARD apps) could provide the most
economic, practical, and accessible routes to information, markets, governance, and finance for
millions of people who have been excluded from their use.

Page 1
This section discusses m-apps generally; the report then switches to its focus on m-ARD apps.
M-apps are software designed to take advantage of mobile technology, enabling the collection
and transmission of data for economic and social activities—whether for commercial,
administrative, or entertainment purposes (McNamara 2009). Moreover, m-apps are not
necessarily associated with specific access devices but focus on providing information and
facilitating activities.

M-apps can be developed for technology besides mobile phones. For example, in one of the case
studies conducted for this report, e-Dairy—an agricultural extension service offering timely data
on cow insemination in Sri Lanka—was designed for touchscreens, which are larger and less
mobile than cell phones. The touchscreens are at fixed locations, and though their monitors can
provide more information than the smaller screens on mobile phones, mobile phones have
several advantages over less mobile (or fixed location) devices such as touchscreens. Mobile
phones:
 Are owned by more people.
 Provide delivery in an instant, more convenient way.
 Can deliver personalized information to individual owners.
 Are cheaper to deploy.
 Provide other functions such as voice communication.

In addition, most m-apps can be replicated across different mobile interfaces and devices, such as
SMS phones, mobile browsers, smartphones, and tablets. This is because the most challenging
part of developing m-apps involves their common backend and infrastructure—especially if
integration between databases is required.

In developed countries m-apps are considered software that operates on smartphones (such as
iPhones, BlackBerries, and Android devices) rather than standard second generation (2G) mobile
phones. But mobile phone operators—particularly in developing countries—have been
developing m-apps, including for information on agriculture prices, for almost 10 years.

In recent years there has been a global explosion in the number of m-apps. Getting accurate
information on the size of the m-apps market is challenging. Table 1.1 summarizes recent
surveys and projections on the size of this market.

Page 2
 Table 1.1: Global Market for Mobile Apps, 2008-12
(billions of U.S. dollars)
a a
Source 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Gartner 4 5.2 15
Ellison 4.9
GetJar / Chetan Sharma
4.1 17.5
Consulting
MarketsandMarkets 4.5 6.8
Source: Gartner 2011; Ellison 2010; GetJar 2010; MarketsandMarkets 2010; BBC Market Trust
2010.
a. Projected.

This explosion in the development of and market for m-apps has been driven by rapid growth in
the use of smartphones and falling Internet access costs on mobile 3G networks. In 2002
Research in Motion transformed the smartphone market with its introduction of the BlackBerry.
But Apple’s iPhone, introduced in 2007, showed the real potential of smartphones, allowing
multiple m-apps to be stored on one device and fully integrated with its operating system. Until
then, smartphone users were limited to text messages, Internet and email use, and phone calls.
Now m-apps can be tailored to a wide range of needs and purposes.

The advent of smartphones also brought with it operating systems (such as Apple’s iOS and
Google’s Android) and application stores (such as Apple’s App Store) that enabled third party
providers to create m-apps for customers. These developments restructured the m-app market in
developed countries from one where mobile network operators were gatekeepers to one that
enables and encourages independent providers to build innovative m-apps and mobile network
operators are primarily data conduits.

M-apps are expected to become increasingly pervasive. The convergence of mobile and
computing devices and the growing use of mobile phones will increasingly make applications
that started as computer-based functions—such as online banking—accessible by handheld
devices.

The rapid speed at which mobile networks are evolving (from 2G to EDGE to 3G to 4G/LTE) is
facilitating the changes in m-apps. For example, Kenya’s M-PESA (which means “mobile”
followed by the Swahili word for money) was originally designed to be a money transfer service,
but additional services have quickly been added—including insurance, savings accounts, bill
payments, bulk payments, and loan repayments. If m-apps mimic the evolution of mobile money
services, change will occur quickly. Thus change and even obsolescence can occur quickly as
one m-app is replaced by another with more features or technological flexibility.

Page 3
In addition, handsets are changing quickly: standard mobile phones are offering more features
and smartphones are becoming cheaper. For example, Research in Motion considers developing
countries a key area for potential growth and is lowering its prices in them. BlackBerry
Messenger is already popular in developing countries where text messaging is widely used, and
many carriers offer handsets with prepaid plans. Accordingly, BlackBerries and other
smartphones will continue to penetrate these markets.

Still, from a development perspective there are constraints to the potential of m-apps.
Smartphone penetration is low in the developing world. Even by 2015 standard mobile phones
will outnumber smartphones in developing countries by nearly four to one (Figure 1.1). Few
standard mobile phones have 3G functionality. For example, the most widely used phone in
Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, and South Africa is the Nokia 5130 XpressMusic, which is
not 3G-enabled. The phone can download applications from Nokia’s Ovi store, but the number
of downloads is quite small—though growing quickly.

Standard mobile phones will continue to dominate in the developing world for at least the next
five years, and probably longer in rural areas. Thus, over the short to medium term, the primary
way of accessing m-ARD apps is going to be through these phones, limiting the types of services
that these apps can offer.

The penetration of smartphones is premised on the availability of mobile broadband. But many
developing countries have low or no 3G penetration. And costs—including of purchase and data
downloads—are a major obstacle. Accordingly, m-apps in the developing world still primarily
offer only SMS and other 2G services, especially in rural areas.

Moreover, most m-apps are for entertainment and lifestyle purposes, especially in the developed
world. These consumer-oriented m-apps are typically offered on a mass-volume, low-cost basis.
(Indeed, many m-apps lacking full functionality are free.) In contrast, it is far more complex and
time-consuming to develop m-apps targeted at a specific challenge in a particular sector. M-apps
for development purposes rarely generate sufficient revenues to be financially sustainable at a
small scale or without significant revenue from bundling, advertising, cross-subsidies, and other
sources.

Page 4
 Figure 1.2: Forecast of Global Mobile Phone Use by Type, 2015
Millions of units

Standard mobile
phones,
developed
countries
16%

Standard mobile
phones, Smartphones,
developing developed
countries countries
52% 18%

Smartphones,
developing
countries
14%
Source: Strategy Analytics 2010.

This Report’s Scope, Audience, and Focus

There are already many studies on the mobile revolution. But systematic trend analysis and in-
depth case studies of mobile applications and services remain insufficient except for a few
widely cited ones. More important, there is little analysis of experiences with business and
operating models for developing innovative m-apps and m-services in key sectors. Yet m-ARD
apps offer significant development potential due to some notable successes, the varied areas of
possible applications, and their direct and pro-poor impacts.

Hence this report summarizes trends in and uses of m-apps (and m-services) for agricultural and
rural development and provides examples and analyses of how they can be used to improve
outcomes in the sector. It also analyzes the mobile ecosystem in developing countries and
suggests how it could be optimized to develop viable m-apps for this sector. Innovative m-ARD
apps, including candidates for scaling up and replication, are identified. The report applies
analytical tools—including typology, results chain, ecosystem, and business model analyses—to
case studies of m-ARD apps used worldwide.

The report provides an analytical framework that supports m-ARD app innovation for two main
audiences:
 Policymakers. What policies could support m-ARD apps that offer the greatest potential
benefits for development? What components of the ecosystem require support to provide
an enabling environment for m-ARD apps?

Page 5
  Development practitioners. Where could m-ARD apps have the largest development
impacts? What kinds of business models have the best chances of success?

The report also provides a methodology for comparing business models for m-ARD app
providers.

The report’s analytical framework for development practitioners is designed to help them
understand how m-ARD apps can improve services for rural residents. This framework pays
particular attention to mechanisms that create an enabling environment for m-ARD app
innovation, such as policies and education conditions, as well as appropriate areas of the
agricultural economy.

The report focuses on access, which touches on every aspect of economic and social life—
particularly in rural areas. Every need or activity that affects or governs living and well-being
can be thought of as requiring access, whether to information, resources, markets, crop
technology, finance, insurance, education, or many other areas. Access is also the first step in
helping poor people receive the information and services needed to improve their lives. The
importance of communications as an access enabler is widely accepted by development
practitioners. Thus the emergence and use of affordable mobile communications and m-ARD
apps could enable far more people to access things that they value and need to improve their
lives.

Lessons drawn from the 92 m-ARD apps reviewed by this report are summarized in Annex E.
These lessons should be highly relevant and practical to policymakers, development practitioners,
and m-ARD app providers because they are based on actual experiences and provide much-
needed insights on the m-ARD app phenomenon. The lessons distilled and the issues highlighted
cut across various aspects of m-ARD app development and are discussed in more detail in the
following chapters.

Page 6
2. Methodology and Case Selection

This report developed a typology of agricultural and rural development and conducted desk
research on 92 mobile applications for agricultural and rural development applications (m-ARD
apps; information sheets for these case studies are available at http://www.worldbank.org/ict/m-
ard) as well as detailed case studies of 15 m-ARD apps based on field visits to Kenya, the
Philippines, and Sri Lanka. It applies various analytical perspectives to the case studies based on
the development impacts of m-ARD apps (Chapter 3), mobile ecosystems (Chapter 4), and
business models (Chapter 5). The findings are then used to offer recommendations for
policymakers and development practitioners working on agricultural and rural development in
developing countries (Chapter 6).

Typology

A structural typology of agricultural and rural development was developed to analyze how m-
ARD apps can be used to address sector-specific issues. This typology identified the main
economic subsectors in agricultural and rural development, various markets and activities in each
subsector, and development challenges facing rural stakeholders. It was also used to classify the
case studies of m-ARD apps, choose representative m-ARD apps for those studies, and map and
analyze benefits for users.

The typology of agricultural and rural development was split into five subsectors, with the most
common m-ARD apps in the following order:
 Agriculture (including animal husbandry, fisheries, and forestry).
 Resource management.
 Labor, migration, and human development (including education).
 Governance and political issues.
 Rural finance, infrastructure, and information and communication technology (ICT).
(The complete typology is in Annex A.)

Figure 2.1 shows the subsector distribution of the 92 m-ARD apps studied worldwide, covering
at least 20 countries. (Some apps cover more than one country.) Though governance and political
m-apps only accounted for a small share of the total, e-government is becoming more important.
The trend toward making government data publicly available (see, for example,
www.data.gov.uk) means that there is likely to be high growth in this subsector.

Page 7
 Figure 2.1: Subsector Distribution of the Applications Studied
Rural finance,
infrastructure, and
ICT
11%

Governance and
political issues
8%
Agriculture
45%

Labor, migration,
and human
development
31%

Resource
management
5%
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Case Studies

During the desk research an information sheet was used to record all pertinent information and
initial analysis about relevant m-ARD apps identified (Annex B). It includes the subsector and
segment, ecosystem players, business model, benefits, potential for growth, scaling up, and
replication, hurdles to be overcome, and a SWORB (strengths, weakness, opportunities, risks,
and benefits) analysis. This information was useful for identifying the best cases among the
various m-ARD apps for the country case studies. Annex C summarizes the information gathered
on all the cases researched, including descriptions, countries, and target users.

Based on the number of relevant m-ARD apps in the subsectors and market segments defined by
the agricultural and rural development typology, a shortlist of countries was selected for detailed
case studies. Figure 2.2 lists the number of m-ARD apps that could be studied in each of these
countries.

Page 8
 Figure 2.2: Number of M-ARD Apps Identified by Country

India
Kenya
Uganda
South Africa
Tanzania
Sri Lanka
Philippines
Cameroon
Bangladesh
Senegal
China
Ghana
Indonesia

0 5 10 15 20

Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Based on the typology, India and Kenya have the most m-ARD apps and the broadest spread of
subsector and segment activities. Because Indian m-ARD apps have been extensively
documented in other literature, they were excluded from this report. For Kenya the typology
allowed for the study of at least five segments of agricultural and rural development. The
country’s global leadership in mobile payments through M-PESA appeared to offer the
possibility of several innovative new applications and trends. Moreover, Kenya still seemed
typical of the developing country experience, where m-ARD apps are largely at the pilot and
commercialization phases.1

Though other countries in East Africa (Uganda and Tanzania) offered interesting areas for
detailed study, the report team chose the Philippines and Sri Lanka because:
 The Philippines is home to m-ARD apps that provide text-based information on
agriculture and extension services, the agriculture market, education, and government
services.
 Sri Lanka has m-ARD apps on extension services, the agriculture market, and
government services. In addition, a Sri Lankan researcher was able to add value by
drawing comparisons with m-ARD apps developed in India for the same subsectors.
 Relative to Africa and Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean offered few opportunities
to conduct a broad cross-sectional survey of m-ARD apps.

1
In addition, several Kenyan m-apps were discovered during the in-country research that had not been identified by
the desk research.
Page 9
The final selection of Kenya, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka provided the broadest, most varied
study opportunities. Case studies of 15 m-ARD apps in these countries included surveys and
interviews of key app sponsors and related ecosystem players. Much of the analysis in this
report is based on these case studies, with trends and lessons also drawn from other m-ARD
apps covered by the desk research.

Kenya, in particular, provided a window into perhaps the world’s most dynamic environment for
m-ARD app development, with constantly emerging possibilities for new apps and for scaling
up and expanding existing ones. The strength of the country’s software development system, its
dynamic m-apps scene, and the general economic environment has led Nokia—a leading
supplier of handsets in developing countries—to invest considerable resources in developing and
diversifying this potential.

Table 2.1 summarizes how the 15 case studies, considered to best represent m-ARD apps in the
three case study countries, are placed in the typology for agricultural and rural development. The
table also provides a brief description of each app.

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 Table 2.1: Subsectors and Segments of the Mobile Applications Studied
Agriculture Labor
Gover- Rural
Distri- Resource migration nance/ finance, Description
Country Application Extension
Price Market bution, manage- &
political infra., &
and ment human
info links logistics, & issues ICT
support dev.
traceability
Kenya *KACE Provides daily market information on 20 commodity prices,
[*Cases   facilitates offers and bids to match farm outputs with demand from
studied in wholesalers, and facilitates links between farmers and buyers (such
as with contract negotiations and commodity transport).
detail]
*DrumNet Covers the horticultural and oilseed industry and provides
information on market trends, weather, prospective partners, and
  the like. Includes finance, production, delivery, and payment
functions to smooth supply chain processes among various actors,
including producers, buyers and processing plants, transport
providers, banks, and input retailers.
*Virtual City Provides automated systems to major buyers of tea, coffee, cotton,
and dairy for collecting, recording, accounting, and
  traceability/distribution of agricultural products. Farmers receive
faster and more accurate price, quality, and quantity information.
Small and medium-size retailers can use phones to facilitate sales,
deliveries, orders, and payments.
*Kilimo Salama Offers agricultural insurance to farmers who plant as little as one
  acre to shield them from financial losses when drought or excess
rain is expected to affect their harvests. The insurance is weather-
indexed and covers inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, and chemicals.
KenCall Provides extension information and advice from experts.
Farmers’ Information and answers to questions are available online or by
 returned phone calls within one day.
Information
Service
Green Dreams— Provides extension information and advice from a database using
Mkulima FIS and  various technologies such as USSD, IVR, SMS, and the Web,
iCow including livestock management information and advice about
cattle.

Page 11
 *Grundfos Provides reliable, safe, convenient, and automatically pumped
Lifelink  groundwater to villages. Users access water pumps using an
electronic key paid for using M-PESA.
Kazi560 Links employers and job seekers using mobile phones. Employers
/Mobile4Good  can advertise and job seekers can subscribe to alerts for numerous
types of jobs.
Jana Offers services to companies in developing countries such as
 collecting the opinions of mobile subscribers about consumer
products. Rural inhabitants do such work and are paid in mobile
phone minutes or other ways.
*Ushahidi Collects and reports information on crises, disturbances, and other
 events by mobile phone and updates the information on Google
Maps. Has been used beneficially in Kenya and Haiti, and has been
licensed to many other locations.
Philippines b2bpricenow Provides current market price information to farmers and
  cooperatives. Its online marketplace links these sellers to buyers
and can process financial transactions using bank accounts (Web)
or debit cards (mobile phones).
Project Mind Provides distance and informal education services by mobile
 phone. Students’ performance is monitored through their
answers—sent by SMS—to multiple-choice math and science
questions. Exams are also administered this way.
Farmers Texting Innovative SMS-based service for answering agricultural queries—
Center   mainly about rice production—from farmers, extension workers,
and others. Also provides technological updates on rice production
and a virtual network where farmers and clients can interact.
TXT CSC Provides information to citizens on government services and
 enables citizens to provide feedback and complaints. Complaints
are sent by SMS, voice, and other means, then routed to the
appropriate agencies.
text2teach Provides fast and timely educational content using mobile and
 satellite technologies. Content includes more than 900 multimedia
materials in video, picture, text, and audio formats. Also uses SMS
to receive feedback and comments.

Page 12
Sri Lanka 1920 Agri Toll-free hotline service that provides crop advisory and
Extension (also technology advice to farmers in Sinhala and Tamil languages. The
known as Govi aim is to help farmers solve problems related to technology, inputs,
 and marketing matters. Users can call from anywhere in the
Sahana Sarana)
country for immediate answers by call center operators.
Agriculture experts are also available as a second line of support
for more complicated questions.
Dialog Tradenet Forwards agricultural commodity price information by SMS and
USSD, reducing information arbitrage. Subscribers receive up to
  five price alerts for five fruits and vegetables from each of the three
markets covered. Also provides a trading platform for farmers to
identify potential buyers.
e-Dairy Provides farmers with information and access to just-in-time
veterinary services using SMS and touch-screen computers.
 Information covers animal health, milk prices, feed suppliers, drug
suppliers, bank loans, techniques for stall construction, and other
topics.
1919 Gov’t Info Hotline that provides information on public services from 99
Center percent of government organizations, such as how to obtain
  passports, copies of birth certificates, marriage and death
certificates, and national identity cards. Also provides information
on train schedules and crop prices by SMS.
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Page 13
3. Development Impact

The largest number of mobile applications for agricultural and rural development (m-ARD apps)
involve improving supply chain integration and likely have the greatest impact on agricultural
and rural development. Agriculture is typically crucial to the economies of developing countries
and employs many people (World Bank 2011). Thus improvements in agriculture are likely to
have the greatest development impacts.2

Improvements in agriculture supply chains have impacts beyond the private sector, such as in the
informal and public sectors. Such improvements can be assumed to generate spinoffs that
provide economic and social benefits factors such as employment creation, added value, and
reduced product losses (van Roekel, Willems, and Boselie 2002). For example, participation in
modern supply chains can increase farmer incomes by 10-100 percent. Efficient supply chains
also help make economies globally competitive (World Bank 2007).

Access to market information and extension services, facilitation of market links, and access to
finance are all related to supply chain operations. The value of using m-ARD apps in the
agriculture supply chain cannot be understated and—though they are not a panacea—there is
evidence of their usefulness in these areas.

Key actors in the agriculture supply chain include:

 Producers (farmers). Farmers integrated with a supply chain can gain access to timely,
cost-effective, personalized information on markets, prices, inputs, weather, good
practices, and impending natural disasters. They can also secure reliable, profitable links
beyond local markets and expand under structured agreements (contract farming) with
buyers.
 Suppliers. Providers of agricultural inputs through, for example, an SMS alert about a
farmer’s input requirements, can plan their stockholding requirements throughout the
season and try to achieve economies of scale. This approach increases sales without
adding credit burdens or risking default or the loss of working capital.
 Buyers. Buyers face numerous challenges in a supply chain that is poorly structured and
requires cumbersome searches for produce and complex financial administration. Such a
supply chain requires heavy reliance on brokers or trader networks that are not always
able to deliver produce of predictable quantity, quality, or source. Unreliable quantities
lead to supply shortfalls that increase production costs and can raise the costs of finished

2
World Bank (2008). In particular, table 9.2 (p. 205) lists rural employment by sector of activity. For example, in
Sub-Saharan Africa 61 percent of men in rural areas work in agriculture. Moreover, 60 percent of the region’s
population lives in rural areas; see UN Habitat and UNEP (2010).
Page 14
 goods. With more efficient supply chains, buyers can benefit from cheaper, higher-
quality produce.
 Financial institutions and insurance companies. Agriculture is considered a risky sector
for financing. Financing small farmers involves high transaction costs, making the market
undesirable for and underserved by financial institutions and products. With supply chain
integration, financial institutions and insurance companies can lower transaction costs
and avoid the complexity of managing large numbers of farming loans. In addition,
producers can better manage risks and plant higher-yield produce thanks to better
insurance coverage.
 Rural development and agricultural extension organizations. Extension workers play an
important role in explaining the benefits of m-ARD apps and obtaining detailed
information about the services required by communities . Extension workers are at the
frontline in terms of collecting and disseminating information.

Virtual City’s AgriManagr illustrates the benefits of automating the supply chain in Kenya’s
export market for tea (Box 3.1). In addition, this report found a number of cases where m-ARD
apps improved access to information, finance, and rural extension and advisory services, and
increased the efficiency of market links and distribution. Figure 3.1 shows a results chain of m-
ARD apps addressing key challenges for agricultural and rural development and achieving
development impacts.

Page 15
 Box 3.1: Virtual City’s AgriManagr—Automating Tea Purchases in Kenya
Virtual City has introduced several applications, one sector at a time, in the form of turnkey
automation paid for by a leading player in each sector or market segment (for example, a main
industry buyer such as a tea factory or cotton or dairy cooperative). An m-app, AgriManagr, automates
purchases and strengthens relationships between the leading chain of tea factories—the Kenya Tea
Production Authority (KTDA)—and tea growers and transport companies. Based on positive initial
results, AgriManagr will be more widely deployed in KTDA’s territory.

Increased efficiency and reduced fraud at buying centers

AgriManagr cut the average transaction time at tea buying centers from 3 minutes under the manual
system to 22 seconds. Weight data for tea is collected electronically at the buying centers and no
adding, editing, or deleting of records is allowed without proper authority. Growers or clerks swipe
growers’ smartcards, automatically updating the day’s transactions. Growers’ receipts show the weight
of produce delivered that day and the cumulative weight for the month. Fraud has been reduced as a
result.

Higher incomes for farmers

AgriManagr has proven beneficial for small tea growers. The average weight per transaction has
increased by about 9 percent. According to independent research, a typical tea farmer with a 3-acre
farm earned about $3,300 in 2010, so the 9 percent additional income due to AgriManagr translated to
about $300.

Lower administrative costs

Before AgriManagr, the average annual factory cost for paper, data entry reconciliation,
communication, and fraud was approximately Kshs 60 million, or $600,000. This has been reduced by
replacing paper documents with electronic data entry and reconciliation. In addition, the cost of
collection has been cut by three-quarters.

Page 16
 Figure 3.1: The Results Generated by Mobile Applications for Agricultural and Rural
Development
Higher prices, produce
Better access to Market information
in greater demand
information
Climate and disease Better disaster and risk
information management
Higher incomes for
Better access to Good agricultural Higher-yield production small farmers
extension services practices

Extension services More accurate

assessments of pasture Lower transaction,
health logistical, and
Better market links Direct links between
Less exploitation by distribution costs for
and distribution farmers, suppliers, and
middlemen input suppliers
networks buyers
More efficient
distribution chains

Improved traceability
Increased efficiency and
and quality standards for
predictability
Better recording, buyers
accounting, and Reduced administrative
traceability costs
Reduced fraud
Better access to Credit New opportunities for
finance financial institutions
Higher yields, more
Insurance
diverse production,
fewer losses
Payment methods

Source: Authors’ Analysis.

Quantitative Impact

Most m-ARD apps are in the pilot phase. But several have provided clear, quantifiable benefits
(Table 3.2). These apps have increased income and access to finance for farmers and provided
benefits to other players through supply chain efficiencies.

Increasing agricultural productivity, profitability, and sustainability in the developing world

depends on the ability of rural populations to adopt changes and innovations in their use of
technologies, management systems, organizational arrangements, institutions, and environmental
resources. Expanding people’s capacity depends on their access to knowledge and information.
M-ARD apps such as KenCall Farmers’ Info Service and GreenDreams in Kenya, Farmers

Page 17
Texting Center in the Philippines, and 1920 Agri Extension and e-Dairy in Sri Lanka were
developed to provide relevant information services to rural populations.

Page 18
 Table 3.1: Benefits of Various Mobile Applications
Increased income through better Improved efficiency in supply Better access to finance
Application Country Higher-yield production
access to information and services chain
Virtual City Kenya  Typically, small farmers see  Transaction time reduced from
AgriManagr their incomes increase 9% due to 3 minutes to 22 seconds
better measuring and recording  Cost of delivery reduced by
of produce weights 75%
 Fraud minimized through use
of electronic data entry
KACE Kenya  75% of farmers and 60% of  Market integration (linkage
commodity traders report higher efficiency) improved for two
incomes commodities—maize and
beans
Kilimo Salama Kenya  $150 average increase in income  50% increase in  More efficient value chain  Farmers in first year
per small farmer production due to leads to lower retail costs insured 10-20% of their
insurance on higher- inputs and increased
yield inputs insurance to 50% of
inputs the next year
DrumNet Kenya  Farmer incomes rose by an  Improved access to  Bank creditworthiness
average of 32% agricultural inputs increased due to secure
 Input suppliers achieve produce supply contracts
economies of scale  Reduced transaction costs
for financial institutions
b2bpricenow.com Philippines  Volume of trade since inception  Direct access to buyers  More efficient and secure
in 2000 is nearly $30 million improves sales payments to members
Farmers Texting Philippines  Farmers are planting crops with  Production increases of
Center higher yields 20% reported
Dialog Tradenet Sri Lanka  23% premium on produce due to  Lower information asymmetry
timely market price information between farmers and brokers
e-Dairy Sri Lanka  Additional income of $262 per  Milk production can  Accurate prices provided at
additional calf due to more increase by 30% delivery point instead of days
timely access to veterinary after delivery, as in the past
services
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Page 19
Providing access to information
The most widely used m-ARD apps provide users with access to useful, relevant information. An
example is where a farmer can get commodity prices in various urban markets through a simple
request made on a mobile phone. Asymmetrical access to pricing information is a weakness of
rural markets. Middlemen can buy farmers’ produce cheaply and sell it at high prices unless
farmers have the same information about the prices for their produce in specific markets.
Increasingly, because of mobile phone penetration and market information apps that require a
low level of literacy to understand, m-ARD apps can provide farmers with direct, immediate
benefits—such as higher incomes.

The case study on Kenya found many such examples. The DrumNet pilot reported that farmer
incomes rose by a third due to a comprehensive system of price negotiation, contracting, and
other value chain support. KACE reported that incomes increased for three-quarters of farmers
and three-fifths of commodity traders—again, apparently due to a fairly complex support system
for links in the value chain. Tea growers using Virtual City’s AgriManagr reported an average 9
percent increase in their incomes (about $300 a year) because of more accurate recording of their
production volumes (see Box 3.1).

Elsewhere, m-ARD apps focused on increasing access to information and providing support for
transactions have improved bargaining power and lowered transaction risks and costs for small
farmers. Examples include B2BPricenow.com in the Philippines and Manobi in Ghana and
Senegal.

Tradenet is a service launched in 2009 by Dialog, Sri Lanka’s leading provider of mobile
services, to provide information on agricultural prices by mobile phone. This content is
supported by Govi Gnana Seva (GGS), a nonprofit that specializes in agricultural marketing and
collects and disseminates information on wholesale trade in produce. Tradenet enables farmers to
access up-to-the-minute prices on agricultural commodities, reducing information arbitrage. As a
result, farmers obtain better prices for their produce and, hence, higher incomes.

Farmers can receive up to five price alerts for up to five fruits and vegetables from each of the
three markets covered by GGS, including the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre—Sri
Lanka’s largest wholesale market for fruits and vegetables, which handles nearly 80 percent of
wholesale agricultural trade in the country. Tradenet is available free of charge to Dialog
subscribers. Information on the Tradenet platform is disseminated using multiple technologies,
including SMS, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), and the Internet. The SMS
service is offered in English, Sinhala, and Tamil.

Tradenet provides users with timely information on price movements in wholesale agricultural
produce. In 2010 farmers 10-15 kilometers from the nearest market obtained an average
premium of 23 percent on the price per kilogram of their produce by using Tradenet (Lokanathan
2010). Farmers also use the service to plan harvest and market entry times. They can do so
Page 20
because most fruits and vegetables in Sri Lanka exhibit high intraday and interday price volatility
due to mismatches between supply and demand. Accurate, real-time price information is
allowing farmers to minimize the sunk costs associated with entering the market at nonoptimal
times (since, due to transport costs, they cannot take their produce back to their farms even if
prices are low in the market).

Information services such as Reuters Market Light in India, Manobi in Ghana and Senegal, and
Ovi Life Tools in China, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria are designed to provide relevant
information to rural residents. These m-ARD apps start by providing general market information
about a specific region or village (such as weather information), but information can then be
highly targeted.

Providing access to extension and advisory services

M-apps also play an important role in expanding timely access to rural extension and advisory
services to meet the immediate needs of farmers and other rural residents as they change their
production and livelihood systems. M-apps provide advice to farmers on problems and
opportunities in agricultural production, marketing, conservation, and family livelihoods; transfer
new technologies and good practices or lessons; facilitate the development of local skills,
organizations, and links with other programs and institutions; and address public interest issues
such as resource conservation, food security monitoring, agricultural production monitoring,
food safety, nutrition, family education, and youth development.

The government-owned Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri

Lanka, for instance, discovered that between 2003 and 2008 more than half of the country’s
milking cows (over 560,000) were not pregnant at any given time (e-Dairy 2009). Low
pregnancy rates were due to lack of timely access to artificial insemination and breeding services,
resulting in a loss of 30-35 days’ worth of milk (about 300 liters, worth $100). The e-Dairy
service was introduced in 2009 to address this issue.3

E-Dairy enables farmers to request veterinary and extension services related to issues such as
animal health, artificial insemination, milk prices, and construction of dairy stalls through a
simple SMS interface or on touchscreen computers. Farmers type in personal identification codes
and the code of the service they need. The request is then sent to all registered suppliers so that
they can contact the farmers directly. Farmers usually obtain feedback within a few hours. So far,
300 farmers have registered for the service. E-Dairy also provides training on computer and
Internet use.

3
The pilot was launched by the Dambadeniya Development Foundation, a community-based organization, with
financial backing from the ICTA. The foundation developed the technology used and supplies the information, while
the ICTA funded half of the initial investment cost. Dialog, the country’s leading mobile service provider, has
provided a special SMS gateway for the service. The service received the Manthan Award South Asia, which
recognizes best practices in electronic content and creativity in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. See http://www.manthanaward.org/other_full_story.asp?id=21.
Page 21
According to Sri Lanka’s Department of Dairy Foods, milk production could be increased by 30
percent if artificial insemination services were requested and supplied in a timely manner.
Moreover, the ICTA estimates that farmers could earn an additional $262 a calf each year.
Farmers could also benefit from access to optimal market prices. Dairy farmers are usually paid
every 15 days. They used to deliver their milk to collection centers without knowing what price
they would eventually be paid. By using e-Dairy, they can obtain prices before delivering their
milk, ensuring that they receive the highest prices.

Extension services can also collect feedback for providers about the usefulness and needed
features of their m-ARD apps. For example, the Grameen Community Knowledge Worker
Initiative in Uganda collects data on the needs of rural farmers using mobile phones and feeds it
into a database to better target extension services.

Establishing market links

M-apps are effective at strengthening market links. They are also being used to improve product
distribution and traceability using more sophisticated and less expensive tools. Sensors that track
spoilage, density, and light and that monitor storage facilities improve product traceability and
food safety in rural areas (RFID News 2009).

Expanding access to finance and insurance

Rural farmers typically lack access to financial services that could increase their ability to
upgrade or diversify their practices. This is mainly because financial institutions and insurance
companies do not seek out rural customers because of the high costs of small transactions and of
loan and claim management. Increasing attention is being paid to the potential to integrate
financial institutions and mobile money (m-money) services in agricultural value chain
applications.

M-apps such as M-PESA in Kenya and SMART Money and G-Cash in the Philippines have
attained widespread trust and acceptance among rural populations as safe, easy ways of making
and receiving payments and storing money. Banks and businesses also recognize these m-ARD
apps as efficient means of administrating payments and money transfers. And, in these countries
at least, m-money is increasingly accepted by banks as a legitimate platform to pay for
agricultural inputs and outputs.

The implementation of an automated village well water supply system in Kenya (Grundfos
Lifelink), for instance, depends entirely on M-PESA as a risk-free and cashless payment system.
Villagers buy an electronic pump key to access safe pumped groundwater instead of having to
walk long distances to collect water from a hand-pumped well or impure surface water source
such as a lake or river. M-PESA is used to recharge the pump keys as needed. The minimum
recharge is $1.25, which pays for at least 20 jerry cans of water. Payments flow directly to the
system account, which then pays for maintenance and repays the community loan for the well.
Page 22
Kenya’s Kilimo Salama system is a more complex m-ARD app that provides weather-based
microinsurance to small farmers using automated premium collections and payouts through M-
PESA (Box 3.2). Farmers, agricultural input suppliers, and the insurance industry all benefit
from this innovative product. In addition, it could protect rural residents against other unexpected
life events if its use were extended to other insurance products such as funeral and accident
coverage.

Page 23
 Box 3.2: Kenya’s Kilimo Salama Microinsurance Product
Kilimo Salama is a weather-based insurance m-app distributed by farm input suppliers to insure
farmers’ investments in inputs—such as seeds, fertilizers, and chemicals—against weather risks such
as drought or excess rainfall. It uses solar-powered weather stations to provide farmers with full
climate data (rainfall, temperature, wind speed, sunlight) and mobile payment technology to collect
premiums and distribute payouts. The m-app also provides an advice line for farmers and sends text
messages to help farmers improve their techniques.

Benefits to small farmers

By insuring their farm inputs, farmers are more confident that they can plant the following season
even after loss, due to the payout. The system’s climate data also enable prediction of the incidence of
disease and other potential risks. The information, combined with knowledge about farmers’ locations
and mobile numbers, enables farmers to receive timely text messages that help them improve their
practices, productivity, and food security.

The initial pilot, where the indexed insurance made major payouts (80 percent of purchase value),
gave farmers—who on average insured only 10-20 percent of their input purchases in the first season
of the program—the confidence to increase their insurance to 50 percent of inputs the next year. In
addition, more farmers bought seeds, fertilizers, and chemicals that have higher yields in normal years.
Still, the complex interactions between weather, information flows, proper use of the information, and
insurance arrangements underscore the critical importance of education and extension services
alongside the sale of insurance and the adoption of new, more productive techniques.

Input suppliers
Distributing insurance also makes sense for suppliers: their revenue and turnover are closely related to
climatic circumstances because their clients only buy inputs when it rains. When suppliers are the only
ones providing credit to farmers, their businesses are quickly in danger of bankruptcy when droughts
occur. Kilimo Salama provides more secure revenue for suppliers because farmers are willing to buy
inputs even in seasons following adverse weather conditions. Moreover, Kilimo Salama is only
offered by certified, trusted suppliers, potentially increasing the loyalty of their customers and
boosting sales.

Insurance industry
The Kilimo Salama m-app made it feasible for the insurance company to provide a product in an
otherwise untapped and practically unreachable market. Both the insurer and international reinsurers
can be confident in the accuracy and timeliness of data provided.

Page 24
Qualitative Impact

In addition to their quantifiable benefits, m-ARD apps have significant qualitative benefits. By
nature, qualitative benefits are harder to assess objectively and largely depend on the local
context. Determining success is made even more complex by the lack of clear project targets in
many e-government m-apps. For example, how does a project assess the benefits of m-apps
relative to the costs of providing them? This remains a key challenge for e-government m-apps.

For example, TXT CSC in the Philippines and the 1919 Government Information Center in Sri
Lanka are e-government applications that provide government information to citizens though a
mix of SMS, voice, and Internet channels. TXT CSC receives some of the heaviest traffic of the
government’s text-based services. Providing information about government services provides
clear benefits at relatively low cost and in response to significant demand. But because both
services mainly only provide information, quantifying their impact is challenging.

Ushahidi, developed in Kenya, is another example of an m-ARD app delivering qualitative

benefits. It uses crowdsourcing to acquire information about events in an area and superimposes
the results onto maps. It was initially used to monitor post-election violence, and its main benefit
has been providing accurate information about what is happening on the ground and increasing
government transparency. Ushahidi is also used to support timely interventions by and aid
government agencies in disaster-hit areas, such as in Haiti after its disastrous 2010 earthquake.
Ushahidi provides a platform for organizations to receive information, analyze it, and form a
response. It is provided on an open source basis to a wide range of public and private agencies,
including new ones—how the information is used and acted on is not Ushahidi’s responsibility.

Page 25
4. Mobile Ecosystems

The general definition of a mobile ecosystem is the same one used by James Moore when he
applied biological concepts to the business world: an economic community supported by a
foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the organisms of the business world.
This economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are also
members of the ecosystem (Moore 1996). The ecosystem for mobile applications for agricultural
and rural development (m-ARD apps) is the community of service providers, rural agencies, m-
app providers, customers, and related participants such as government departments, financiers,
and regulators.

All possible players in the ecosystem for m-ARD apps are listed in Annex D. The annex also
describes the players’ assets, abilities, and incentives, which are important parts of this report’s
analysis and were initially developed as an analytical information sheet.

This chapter analyzes elements of the m-ARD app ecosystem that differ in developing and
developed countries. It is important to examine these differences because rural markets in
developing countries are fundamentally different than in developed countries, and will remain so
for quite some time. Lessons from the developed world are only valuable in drawing lessons
relevant for developing country contexts and ecosystems. The main differences between the m-
ARD app ecosystems of developing and developed countries are summarized in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1: M-app Ecosystems in Developing and Developed Countries

Participants/
features Developing countries Developed countries

Key players  Mobile network operators are gatekeepers  Platform providers dominant (such as
Apple’s App store)
 Independent providers are key
players

Platform  Platform being developed (such as Ovi  Easy to put m-apps on the platform
Store)  Platform provides developer support,
 Often no mobile payment system customer service, payment system
 Mobile money available in some countries (credit card, PayPal), and guarantees
(such as Kenya’s M-PESA) the functionality of apps
 Operator billing negotiated at the platform
level

Content and  Hyper-local information  Multiple ways of getting information

services  Highly local training and services in both rural and urban
 Content often not available in digitized areas
form, so greater need for collaboration  Substantial information available in
with local content providers digitized form
Source: Authors’ Compilation.
Page 26
As noted, in the developed world there are many ways of accessing information, including
computers, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. By comparison, in rural parts of the developing
world mobile phones are one of the main and often only ways of accessing information. For
example, in the United States 94 percent of rural areas have at least one mobile broadband
provider, television penetration is 98 percent, and radio penetration is 99 percent (U.S. Census
Bureau 2011).

In the developed world a considerable amount of Internet use involves social media. While social
media is also widely used in the developing world, more attention is paid to the role of m-apps in
solving problems where few alternatives exist. In the developed world the most popular types of
m-apps are for games, weather, and social networking. M-apps that focus on agriculture are often
extensions of services available from the Internet or desktop software. For example, Apple’s App
Store has 40 apps that can be found using agriculture as a keyword. Most involve utilities,
productivity, or business issues. The reference category contains just 4 apps—and they all
consist of basic agricultural glossaries that are of limited use, leaving just 36 agriculture-focused
m-apps out of 425,000 (as of June 2011), or 0.008 percent of the total. In the Android market
there are just 7 agriculture m-apps out of 200,000 (as of May 2011), or 0.004 percent of the total.

From an agricultural and rural development perspective, this means that outcomes in the
developed world are the result of a particular context or development path. The introduction of
the iPhone in 2007 and Apple’s App Store in 2008 transformed the developed world’s m-app
ecosystem. The developing world—particularly because it has such information scarcity in areas
such as B2B operations—will follow a different path of m-app evolution. Hence using the
developed world’s m-app ecosystem as a reference point for the potential evolution of m-apps in
developing countries is not particularly useful.

The key challenge in developing countries is creating dynamic m-app ecosystems, including
platforms, that mirror developed countries in some ways—most notably by making m-apps more
accessible and viable. Several interventions can support progress toward a dynamic model in
which a range of stakeholders feed a virtuous loop of m-app development. Numerous policy
measures will be required to address deficiencies in the m-app ecosystem in developing countries.
The needs and issues are discussed below, and recommendations are provided in Chapter 6.

Key Players

Mobile network operators

The mobile ecosystem in developing countries tends to be a loose association of companies not
all pulling in the same direction. Mobile network operators generally dominate the ecosystem—
providers are not seen as a core constituency. Instead of providing the tools needed to host and
sell m-apps and letting the market determine which ones are desired, mobile network operators
in developing countries decide which m-apps they want on their systems.

Page 27
M-PESA, for example, has not released its application programming interface (API), so third
party providers cannot develop innovative uses for it (Kemibaro 2011, Kimunyu 2009). Also in
Kenya, Safaricom is the gatekeeper for any m-apps that want to link to its system and charges up
to 85 percent of the revenue from m-app transactions. In India and Indonesia revenue shares are
more favorable toward m-app providers, with even splits of revenue possible.

M-app providers
In developed countries mobile operators have become data carriers only and are of secondary
importance to m-app hosting platforms. The best example is the end of AT&T and Apple’s
exclusivity agreement for iPhone coverage. As a result, iPhone sales have soared (Apple 2011).
The Apple iOS and Google Android operating systems rely on third party providers for m-apps
and charge about 30 percent of transaction revenue. Independent software developers are free to
innovate and drive the development of m-apps.

Users
Depending on their goals, m-ARD apps target different types of users:
 Farmers. KACE in Kenya, Manobi in Ghana and Senegal, and several other m-ARD
apps target farmers with pricing information as well as more sophisticated supply chain
services.
 Rural produce buyers and food processing plants (including warehouses). Supply chain
integration solutions provide a lower cost of supply and can increase the quality of
supply. M-apps providing these kinds of solutions include KACE, Manobi, and Virtual
City.
 Cooperatives. B2bpricenow.com in the Philippines initially targeted cooperatives that
held accounts with the main agricultural bank. It has since expanded services to small
farmers.
 Input suppliers. Kenya’s Kilimo Salama, an agricultural insurance program, has formed a
partnership with Syngenta, an agricultural input supplier with a network of additional
suppliers.
 Consumers. Ovi Life Tools (OLT) in India, Indonesia, and Nigeria provides farmers with
agricultural price information and consumers with health, entertainment, and education
services. This approach could facilitate economies of scale, cross-subsidies, advertising,
and other financial benefits.
 Rural development organizations. These include government health agencies,
government ministry field workers, and donors active in the field. For example, the
Grameen Community Knowledge Worker Initiative in Uganda collects data on the needs
of rural farmers and uses it to improve the design of education programs.

Page 28
Unlike in the developed world, m-ARD app users in the developing world demand relevant,
hyper-local content. For example, agricultural prices must be sourced from local and regional
markets so that farmers can compare prices and decide where to take their produce. (Several m-
ARD apps provide this information, including Manobi, OLT, and Reuters Market Light). In
addition, there is a burgeoning movement to collect information about users through innovative
m-ARD apps such as Jana. This information can be used to provide users with better, more
useful, and more relevant information.

Content providers
Several m-ARD apps provide hyper-local information as a key part of their services. Such
content is useful because it can be acted on and relevant because it is user-specific. Several
players in the mobile ecosystem can provide useful and relevant information:
 Government departments. Government departments provide data to local m-ARD apps,
following the lead of innovative developments in the United Kingdom and United States
(www.data.gov.uk and www.data.gov respectively). Kenya’s government has launched
www.opendata.go.ke, which provides data on the national census, government spending,
parliamentary proceedings, and public service locations as part of an experiment to see
what innovative m-apps that providers can design using the data.
 Extension workers. Several initiatives provide extension services to farmers, such as the
Grameen Community Knowledge Worker Initiative, developed and operated by the
Grameen Foundation with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
 Civil society. In Sri Lanka Govi Gnana Seva (GGS), a nonprofit, works with Dialog
Tradenet to provide real-time market pricing information to farmers.
 Specialized commercial units. In Kenya, KACE has organized market research centers
that collect and monitor local market data daily, report information to radio stations on
bid/ask prices, and provide farmers with market links, pick-up and delivery
transportation, and training in information and communication technology (ICT). The
centers are a mix of wholly owned and franchised businesses, a model that appears
attractive.4
 Media. KACE broadcasts local agricultural prices and trades using community radio.
 Crowdsourcing. Ushahidi in Kenya provides a platform for people to collect and plot
information (ranging from disaster management to civil unrest) from officials or citizens
sent by email, SMS, or Twitter.

4
See Annex G, Kenya Case Study, section 4.3.
Page 29
Platform

The most important m-apps innovation in the developed world has been the creation of a
platform that allows independent software providers to create m-apps. For the purposes of this
report, a platform is defined as software architecture that serves as a foundation or base for other
programs or applications. A platform usually includes security features—procedural and
software rules that m-apps must comply with to use the platform. Examples of platforms include
Android, Apple’s iOS, Ushahidi, and Telefonica’s BlueVia.

Apple’s App Store distinguishes itself from previous systems, such as those developed by mobile
network operators, by providing an operator-neutral platform. Providers are free to be innovative,
and getting an m-app into the Apple App Store is relatively easy. In July 2010 the platform had
more than 43,000 app providers associated with iOS (AppStoreHQ 2010). Moreover, the App
Store provides developer support, customer service, and a payment system, and guarantees m-
app functionality. This creates consumer trust in the system and contributes to the massive
number of m-app downloads.

Creating a similar platform for developing countries would face obstacles including low mobile
broadband penetration, lack of an m-payment system, low smartphone penetration, and low
advertising revenue. These factors, coupled with the importance of mobile network operators in
driving mobile phone adoption, have created an alternative platform for developing countries.5

Nokia, drawing on its historical dominance in developing countries with standard phones and
having lost significant market share to smartphones in developed countries, sees an opportunity
in developing countries. Nokia launched the Ovi Store in 2009, incorporating a group of m-apps
called Ovi Life Tools (OLT) targeted at users in developing countries. These tools are geared
toward narrowband, affordable m-apps providing health, education, agriculture, and
entertainment services. OLT has about 6.3 million users in China, India, and Indonesia (Nokia
Conversations 2010b), and has been operational in Nigeria since November 2010. Several of
Nokia’s m-apps, such as Ovi Maps, use compression to reduce data usage, making them better
suited to narrowband environments (ReadWriteWeb 2010).

Unlike the Apple and Android models, which use mobile network operators purely as data
carriers, developing country platforms such as OLT must integrate with mobile network
operators to use their operator billing systems. Credit cards are still uncommon in developing
countries and so are not good mechanisms for consumers to pay for m-apps. Few institutions in
developing countries are as trusted as mobile network operators and their associated mobile
money (m-money) operations such as M-PESA, GCash, and Smart Money (the latter two both in
the Philippines).

5
Developing countries and emerging economies are defined according to the list in IMF (2010).
Page 30
M-PESA has a long history of providing person-to-person transfers and other money services in
areas with no prior access to financial services. Operator billing enables consumers to buy m-
apps and have the cost deducted from their prepaid or postpaid balances. When the Ovi Store is
introduced in an area, operator billing accounts for an average of 13 times more sales than credit
cards (Nokia Conversations 2010a). As of November 2011, operator billing through the Ovi
Store was available in 46 countries (Nokia Developer 2011).

Providers like using the Ovi Store because it negotiates on their behalf with mobile network
operators—hence the rapid increase in the number of m-apps available through the store. But the
Ovi Store has to negotiate with every mobile network operator in each country, slowing the
process of providing m-app services relative to Apple and Android. Still, using operator billing
as an alternative (though imperfect) replacement for m-money provides a foundation for m-apps
to develop their own revenue streams. Without a payment mechanism, m-apps face significant
challenges to becoming commercially sustainable. Hence, supporting m-money and other mobile
payment systems is an important step toward promoting sustainable m-apps.

Mobile network operators have different models for m-app development platforms, of which
BlueVia, created by Spain’s Telefonica, is particularly interesting. Telefonica launched BlueVia
in late 2010. BlueVia copies several features of the Apple and Android development platforms:
 Providers earn 70 percent of m-app sales and subscription payments.
 The application programming interface (API) is free.
 Providers earn a share of advertising revenue.
 Providers have access to all Telefonica subscribers (Telco 2.0 2010).

BlueVia differs from competing models such as T-Mobile’s because it bring providers into the
platform for free and does not charge for the API. Providers can also sell their products to third
party m-app stores. Like Nokia’s Ovi Life Tools model, BlueVia also allows providers to charge
for their apps by mobile phone—in the Czech Republic, Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the
United Kingdom using the O2 brand and in Latin America and Spain using the Movistar brand.

Still, the BlueVia model faces challenges. Though Telefonica has presented a plan for integration
with other mobile network operators, it does not yet have any integration with competitors. As a
result, the number of users is limited to Telefonica’s 200 million subscribers, while the Android
model’s limit is potentially far higher. The Android model also has the advantage of not being
associated with any mobile operator, while BlueVia is explicitly associated with Telefonica.
BlueVia’s stated intention is to be operator independent, but Vodafone, T-Mobile, and several
other operators have launched their own app stores. It remains to be seen how the app store
landscape will play out among mobile operators.

The challenges facing m-apps where there is no platform—and the potential benefits of getting
one—are described in Box 4.1. In developing countries the ability to scale up depends on an m-
Page 31
app ecosystem platform. A platform gives m-app providers access to a large number of
consumers and well-known, trusted payment mechanisms (m-money companies such as M-
PESA). A platform can also facilitate transactions between consumers and companies that see
opportunities to market their products to rural consumers. These types of companies include
suppliers and distributors of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), banks, microinsurance
companies, and agricultural cooperatives (see Figure 4.2 and Chapter 5).

Box 4.1: Virtual City: The Challenges of Working Without a Platform

Virtual City is an m-apps developer in Kenya that has provided automation solutions in the
tea, coffee, dairy, and cotton agricultural segments. Virtual City interacts only with the lead
buyer in each sector to develop customized solutions (Box Figure 4.1). Virtual City might
have some interaction with farmers and distributors, but this is intermediated by buyers.
Virtual City does not have any influence on critical m-apps ecosystem players such as handset
manufacturers, financial institutions, and mobile network operators. Virtual City’s approach is
self-sustaining because clients realize that its benefits justify its costs. But Virtual City is
limited by the number of m-apps that it can develop.

Figure B4.1.1: Virtual City Ecosystem

In September 2010 Virtual City received $1 million from Nokia’s Growth Economy Venture
Challenge. This cash infusion provided financing as well as an opportunity for Virtual City to
work with Nokia on integrating Virtual City’s Mobile Distributor Solution with Nokia’s Ovi
Life Tools (OLT), creating potential for more clients and increased scalability. This is a
promising route because the OLT platform serves 2G and 3G handsets that are far more
commonly used than iPhone, Android, and Blackberry handsets in the developing world.

Page 32
 Figure 4.2: Ecosystem Platform

Consumers

Application Payment
developers Platform mechanisms

Companies
interested in
developing
country markets

Source: Authors’ Compilation.

The Nokia Ovi Store and Ovi Life Tools (OLT) models suggest that a successful m-apps
platform is possible for developing countries. Such a platform provides relatively uniform m-app
approval procedures and processing times. The principle of streamlining the approval process
through an intermediary such as the Ovi Store or OLT is important.

Highly Local Content and Services

Another fundamental difference between developed and developing country markets is that m-
apps in developing countries must be hyper-local and tailored to user requirements—even down
to the village level—in terms of the information and services that m-apps offer, necessary
training, and the operating platform. Scaling up is difficult.

In developed markets there are many ways to access local information. Most local stores, for
example, have a presence on the Internet. Finding the price for a good or service simply requires
going online. In developing country markets information asymmetry is the norm. Disposable
income is extremely low and people cannot afford to use several different methods to access
information. To offer value to customers in developing countries, information provided by m-
apps must be hyper-local.

A study of Indian services showed the relative value provided by specialized content providers
(Mittal and Tripathi 2010). Farmers placed higher value on the information provided by Reuters
Market Light (RML) than that provided by IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd (IKSL). The information

Page 33
provided by RML was more specific, and RML had more experience with providing relevant
information. IKSL was a partnership between a fertilizer cooperative and a mobile network
operator. The information business was secondary to its primary business—gaining more mobile
subscribers and increasing fertilizer sales (Lokanathan and De Silve 2010). Its learning curve, in
terms of disseminating relevant content, was steep. Unlike RML, providing relevant content was
IKSL’s only way of generating revenue, so it spent more time trying to understand the needs of
its target audience.

Moreover, levels of consumer education and literacy are usually low in rural areas of developing
countries and so require onsite demonstrations or training in the use of m-ARD apps. Several m-
ARD apps highlight the need for trainers to visit villages to explain the benefits and use of each
app. Examples include:
 Govi Gnana Seva agriculture price collectors in Sri Lanka, who work in association with
Dialog Tradenet.
 KACE’s market resource centers, whose staff visit markets in Kenya to get data and work
with farmers to help create links after they get information on market prices.
 Kilimo Salama, an insurance marketing application in Kenya that provides farmers with
integrated financial training and educational extension services about insurance and high-
yield seeds.
 Reuters Market Light in India, which provides local-level market information to farmers,
using local teams to collect market data for submission to a central server.

Such support is costly. Some m-ARD apps are developed for literate village-based intermediaries
such as phone operators, health workers, and entrepreneurs who then provide information to their
village’s poorest residents, who are illiterate or do not own phones. The Grameen Community
Knowledge Worker Initiative in Uganda is an example.

For m-ARD app platforms, Nokia’s requirement that OLT be hyper-local ensures that it can offer
unique content in each country. In India, for example, OLT’s agricultural information desk
handles more than 10,000 data points a day, more than 275 different crops in more than 4,000
markets, and in 11 languages (Nokia World 2010). This is why services such as OLT are
available in only 14 languages and 4 countries.

Page 34
5. Business Models

Business models are the systems that organizations use to create, deliver, and capture value
(Osterwalder and Pigneur 2009). Still, the definition of a business model is murky. It usually
refers to a loose concept of how a company does business and generates revenue. Yet simply
having a business model is a low bar to set for building a company. Generating revenue is a far
cry from creating economic value, and no business model can be evaluated independently of
industry structure (Porter 2001). Moreover, multiple business models may exist within an
industry structure, and the concept of value has two meanings in the context of m-ARD apps in
developing countries:
 For commercial mobile applications for agricultural and rural development (m-ARD
apps), the concept of value is the ability to earn enough profit to continue operating in the
medium term (more than the next two years).
 For noncommercial m-ARD apps (such as some e-government apps), value is defined as
providing a nonmonetary benefit to a target group such as rural residents, patients, or any
other defined group. For a noncommercial m-app to be sustainable, the social and
economic value it delivers should be greater than the cost of providing it.

Commercial m-apps are either transactional or informational. Transactional m-apps have a built-
in payment system—for example, integration with a mobile money (m-money) service provider
(such as M-PESA) or operator billing service (such as Ovi Life Tools). Informational m-apps
aim to be profitable or sustainable by generating an alternative revenue stream—say, by
providing services (as with Jana). Noncommercial m-apps do not have any integration with
payment systems or alternative revenue streams because they are funded by donors and
governments.

The business model analysis in this report study was undertaken in accordance with the case
study information sheet in Annex B. In addition, the business models for the 92 m-ARD apps
studied were aggregated and the apps were placed into three stages of business development:
 Pilot. The proof of concept stage: m-ARD apps are testing their concepts, usually with
small target markets, and often do not charge for their services. Donors and governments
usually provide the funding for this stage.
 Stage 1. The scalability stage: based on a successful pilot stage, m-ARD apps begin
scaling up and trying to enter markets. Commercial m-ARD apps move from being free
to charging fees, such as for transactions or membership. In the noncommercial category,
even if an app does not charge fees—as with a government information service such as
TXT CSC in the Philippines—sponsors can make the transition from a limited to a larger
scale and become more popular or feature-rich based on whether goals are being met and
the costs of scaling up justify the outcomes.
 Stage 2. The sustainability stage: the point at which m-ARD apps are profitable or at least
break even. Even if not profitable in stage 1—for example, an m-app may still be reliant

Page 35
 on donor support—an m-app’s sponsors must demonstrate how sustainability can be
achieved. Growth is still a major focal point, but medium-term sustainability has been
achieved. This usually requires having a business plan that might call for more
investment in marketing and enhancing software to reach the scale required for
profitability.6 For noncommercial m-apps, the funding cycle is not dependent on monthly
cash flows, but rather the willingness of the donor or government to continue funding the
application. Decision cycles for noncommercial m-apps might be much longer than for
commercial ones.

Sustainability

Figure 5.1 shows where the 92 m-ARD apps reviewed by this report fall in terms of the three
stages of business development. Figure 5.2 shows whether the apps are commercial or
noncommercial and where they fall in the business development stages. Only 16 percent of the
m-ARD apps have reached stage 2, the sustainability stage. This may be because many are still
in early stages of development. With time, more of these apps will likely move from the pilot
stage and stage 1 to stage 2. But the significant difference in the number of m-ARD apps at stage
1 and stage 2 indicates the major challenges involved in becoming commercially sustainable.

Figure 5.1: Mobile Applications by Business Development Stage

60%

51%
50%

40%
33%

30%

20% 16%

10%

0%
Pilot - Proof of concept stage Stage 1 - Scalability stage Stage 2 - Sustainability stage

Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Most of the m-ARD apps studied—commercial and noncommercial—are facing challenges in

scaling up after successful pilot stages. For commercial m-ARD apps this evolution requires

6
In Kenya, KACE required 40 percent donor funding in stage 1 but has a clear business plan that will require
spending much more on marketing and investing in the development of an enhanced platform, neither of which was
possible under donor funding. With the promise of profitability within two years, the business plan is targeted at
securing private debt and equity. DrumNet prepared such a plan for commercialization after its successful pilot, but
its future is uncertain because it has tried to move from the pilot stage to stage 2 with a sophisticated, ambitious
business plan that has yet to attract an investor.
Page 36
balancing the demands of maintaining profitability and covering expansion costs. For
noncommercial m-ARD apps the scalability stage involves a constant evaluation of the benefits
that these apps provide to subscribers and whether they justify the costs of expansion.

A similar pattern emerges when comparing commercial and noncommercial m-ARD apps
through the stages of business development. There are more m-ARD apps in stage 1 for both
commercial and noncommercial apps. But there is a larger drop-off from stage 1 to stage 2 for
commercial than noncommercial apps. There is little substantive evidence to explain this
difference, though one possible reason is the different types of financing available to the two
types of applications.

Figure 5.2: Mobile Applications by Type and Stage

Commercial Noncommercial

60
52
50

40

30

20
20
13 12
11
10
4

0
Pilot ‐ Proof of concept stage Stage 1 ‐ Scalability stage Stage 2 ‐ Sustainability stage

Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Note: The number of enterprises sums to more than 92 because many applications have different
versions in different countries or fall into a mix of categories.

The relationship between potential market size and the success of an m-ARD app adds
complexity to the issue of sustainability. For example, Reuters Market Light (RML) is based in
India, a country with a population of more than 1.1 billion (World Bank 2009), and has a
subscriber base of 250,000—but is not yet profitable. B2bpricenow.com, based in the Philippines,
where the population is 92 million (World Bank 2009), has a very different product offering
focused on a niche market with far fewer subscriber than RML. Yet b2bpricenow.com is
profitable. Though population size may be linked to sustainability, factors such as target market
size, customers’ ability and willingness to pay, and services offered may be more relevant.

Page 37
Noncommercial e-government applications also face unique challenges to achieving
sustainability, as they need continued support from various government agencies and ministries
to deliver government information. This support ranges from simple responsiveness to
information requests to database integration. But the main challenge for most e-government m-
apps is moving beyond providing information to providing responsive systems with tracking and
feedback capabilities. Doing so adds significant value for users and helps ensure the
sustainability of these services.

Willingness to Pay

Demand is one of the key sustainability issues for commercial m-ARD apps in developing
countries, especially in terms of users’ willingness to pay for goods and services. Willingness to
pay is distinct from ability to pay, but they are related concepts from a demand perspective. For
example, consumers who derive considerable benefits from the consumption of a good may be
willing to pay for it, but their budgets are limited by their ability to pay.

Willingness to pay is more reflective of the demand for m-ARD app services because many
commercial apps are not yet at their most affordable prices, as they are still unable to fully
benefit from economies of scale. In addition, focusing on ability to pay is myopic from a
development perspective because it ignores poorer population segments that are likely to benefit
more from such services. Hence ability to pay does not provide as useful a perspective to
development practitioners and policymakers, this report’s main audience.

Evidence on willingness to pay from many countries—India, Kenya, the Philippines, Senegal,
Sri Lanka, and elsewhere—indicates that farmers seem willing to pay for basic or premium SMS
calls to secure information. But their willingness to pay for these calls, and possibly to pay an
additional fee for the service, may depend significantly on their income and education levels and
the scope of the information services provided. The experience of Manobi, a market pricing
system in Senegal, suggests that small farmers earning just $1-2 a day might not be willing to
pay for even a simple information service, such as market prices, even though they could double
their income by receiving such information (Annerose 2010).

Experiences also indicate that poorly educated farmers are less willing to pay even basic phone
charges for simple information services, and even less so if the benefits of the information
emerge in the long term (such as learning about new farming techniques where the payoff is not
immediate). But it is important to remember that almost all users have to pay for the voice call or
SMS to access such services, and it is typical for m-app providers to receive a portion of this
revenue from mobile network operators.

Hence the evidence is mixed on farmers’ willingness to pay more than the basic
telecommunications costs of SMS or premium calls for useful information or services. Some m-

Page 38
ARD app providers interviewed for this report are convinced that farmers are willing to pay for
more value added apps that facilitate deals, have useful granular or local market information, and
provide trading and linkage management services. In Kenya two case studies show that linkage
management can be priced at up to 5 percent of the value of the deal it facilitates. The combined
benefits of higher commodity prices, more secure deals, elimination of middlemen, and other
factors generate this demand (see below).

Willingness to pay can also be increased by offering a mix of tools and relevant information for
users in developing countries. For example, Nokia combines several categories of services in its
Ovi Life Tools (OLT) package:
 Agriculture: providing information on prices, weather, and availability of pesticides and
seeds, for example. Information is customized by location.
 Education: tools to boost knowledge of the English language as well as general
knowledge at the local, national, and international levels.
 Health: information, advice, and tips on health issues, particularly pregnancy and
maternal health and childcare.
 Entertainment: games, email, and other entertainment.

Revenue

Typical revenue streams

Several revenue streams are available to m-apps. The costs of app development and support are
often affordable, even on a consumption basis, and even more so because B2B prices are based
on leveraging subscribers’ willingness to pay. Thus m-app providers have reasonable options.
The most common revenue stream for information services is a share of SMS revenue. But m-
ARD app providers typically receive less than 18 percent of SMS revenues from mobile
operators (just $0.016 a message in Kenya). This is part of the motivation for m-app providers to
offer freemium pricing models that derive revenues from higher-value services based on
transaction or membership fees.

A charge per transaction can also be quite successful. For example, Kazi560 in Kenya is a job
information service that links job seekers to employers. There is a small fee for job seekers to
receive an SMS message. This application has only been used in Nairobi but is expanding to
other cities, though it is not yet targeting rural job seekers.

Still, securing such revenue is difficult. Only 29 percent of the m-ARD apps surveyed receive
some form of operating revenues from normal business activities through shares of SMS,
transaction fees, or membership fees (Figure 5.3). The other 71 percent are partly or entirely
dependent on external financing (such as from donors or governments) because they do not earn
enough revenues to sustain operations. But pricing for viability is possible if investment funding
is secured.

Page 39
 Figure 5.3: Mobile Applications by Revenue Source
80.0%
70.8%
70.0%

60.0%

50.0%

40.0%

30.0%

20.0%
11.5% 10.4%
10.0% 7.3%

0.0%
Share SMS Transactions Membership Other

Commercial m-ARD apps must develop a creative combination of revenue streams that can yield
a return on investment and cover operating costs while taking into account the app’s
affordability—a possible barrier for some consumers. But m-apps can be marketed with a range
of strategies and pricing options, changing consumer perceptions of affordability. Table 5.1
summarizes a range of potentially feasible revenue streams for information and support services
that benefit various players in the rural ecosystem and so could generate sufficient demand to
ensure sustainability.

Table 5.1: Rationale for Fees and Revenue Streams for Mobile Applications
Revenue source Fee Customer Rationale

User sign-up fees One-time membership fee that Farmers Access to a network provides farmers with
gives farmers access to a markets, credit, and information they would
network of partners and basic otherwise not receive
services
One-time or recurring Buyers, A subscription to the portal featuring
subscription fee for basic or banks, several basic services available to major
premium services delivered insurance customers payable on a scale for premium
through a Web-based portal, companies, services such as individualized alerts and
including reports, maps, and other premium information
alerts commercial
entities
Information access Nominal fee for an SMS Farmers Farmers benefit from pricing information if
fees message or package of messages local or granular in nature, especially if m-
apps use market information to offer
linkage services that assist with tasks such
as contracting and transport

Page 40
Transaction fees Nominal fee for SMS or USSD Farmers Offers to buyers or inquiries about credit
communications could be made through the platform’s SMS
facility and involve a fee to buyers for each
SMS, which is more cost-effective than
other communications
Fee on agricultural input or Input Input retailers and agricultural input dealers
insurance transaction facilitated retailers can increase their sales by acting as
by the platform certified network partners for input
suppliers or distributers of microinsurance
products on the system
Fee on produce sales facilitated Farmers and Farmers and buyers pay for services to
and expedited through the buyers expedite produce contracting collection and
platform delivery, facilitate payment for produce,
and track and report produce collection and
payment (farmers have shown willingness
to pay a fee of 5% in various cases)
Advertising and Fee for advertising products and Commercial Companies (both users and nonusers of the
research services on platform to network companies m-app) will pay to advertise their products
partners either by SMS on a Web and services to farmers and others inside
portal and outside the agricultural sector., and
could target certain locations or
demographics
Fee for facilitating research in Commercial Companies and agencies with economic or
the form of simple questions companies development interests in rural areas, such
(such as from farmers) about and others as suppliers and distributors of fast-moving
demand preferences consumer goods, banks, NGOs, and
cooperatives, would pay for access to all
farmers on the network. The research could
be more successful if part of the fee were
shared with targeted users such as farmers
in the form of service credits or airtime.
Fee for accessing valuable Commercial Many organizations, including research and
information available in growing companies community development organizations,
database and others would find valuable the data on farmers,
buyers, and banks and the interactions
contained in the service database.
Other service fees Fee for alerting a bank to the Banks Some commercial banks want to lend to the
loan needs of specific farmers agricultural sector and to small farmers but
and facilitating their interactions doing so is risky and expensive, so banks
with banks will pay to be introduced to farmers
looking for loans—especially those with
access to contracts or with known credit
history
Fee for process or platform Buyers and Major users such as buyers and banks may
customization banks require customization of processes such as
forms or of Web-based portals
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Page 41
Alternative revenue streams
The ability to find alternative or supplementary sources of income beyond government or donor
support could significantly increase the sustainability of m-ARD apps. Revenue from advertisers
gives m-apps in the developed world a major advantage in reaching long-term sustainability. For
example, providers in the Apple App Store and Android Market can earn $10 and $7 per
subscriber, respectively, through advertising. (This is for apps with more than 500,000
downloads and/or more than 75,000 daily users.) Such amounts are unrealistic in developing
countries because disposable incomes and the number of m-app users are much lower, and these
countries have less of an advertising culture.

Instead of adopting the developed world’s advertising revenue model, m-app providers in
developing countries can take advantage of revenue opportunities available because of
information asymmetry and scale. In such cases the lack of consumer information can be an
advantage in encouraging companies interested in developing country markets to pay for
information from m-apps.

Some innovative m-apps already operate along these lines. Instead of looking at consumers as
their only source of income, these m-apps see the potential for facilitating and profiting from
transactions between consumers and companies in developing countries. These companies
typically have commercial interests in rural markets and may see an opportunity to market their
products through m-ARD apps. They may also have an interest in nonagricultural m-apps where
valuable market information could be extracted. Suppliers and distributors of fast-moving
consumer goods (FMCGs), banks, microinsurance companies, and agricultural cooperatives are
potential candidates for such market research and survey services.

For example, Jana, which started in Kenya and has since spread elsewhere, is a crowdsourcing
m-ARD app that gathers small pieces of information from mobile customers in developing
countries in exchange for airtime credits, and has automated algorithms to evaluate the quality of
the data and compensate respondents. If a company selling FMCGs wants to understand
consumer reactions to a brand of shampoo, a brief questionnaire can be texted to a Jana database
of users. For answering the questionnaire, each respondent receives free airtime. Thus Jana is
exploiting an alternative revenue stream that has been missing from developing country m-apps:
FMCG companies are paying for access to a large number of consumers, getting information
about consumers’ wants, and promoting their products. Business models such as Jana’s are
highly scalable, low-cost, and focused on generating revenue.

The crowdsourcing or market intelligence approach can be combined with other m-ARD apps in
rural areas to develop supplementary revenue streams, particularly as information about
consumer habits is compiled over time. As indicated by Table 5.1, these databases can be mined
to add value and benefit for nonrural organizations including governments that want to
understand their citizens’ behavior, motivations, and interests. This is relevant to the challenges

Page 42
facing m-app providers in developing countries, and should be an agenda item for m-app
collaboration and networking initiatives.

Similar ideas, as well as related creative advertising, could be married with m-ARD apps to form
partnerships with companies interested in rural markets. These companies could create
supplementary revenue streams for m-ARD apps. Governments and donors could bring such
companies into the evolution of m-ARD apps by including them in consultations, workshops,
networking events, and other initiatives.

Pricing Models

This report identified four main pricing models for m-ARD apps: nonchargeable, transactional,
embedded services, and freemium. These models are derived from the qualitative analyses of the
15 case studies in Kenya, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, as well as a comparison with other
well-developed cases elsewhere.

Table 5.2 categorizes 19 m-ARD apps based on these models. There are 11 nonchargeable, 3
transactional, 3 embedded, and 2 freemium models. But some of these models can overlap, and
each has successful examples discussed in detail below.

Page 43
 Table 5.2: Mobile Applications by Pricing Model
Embedded
Application Nonchargeable Transactional Freemium
services
KACE * 
Lifelink * 
DrumNet * 
Kilimo Salama * 
B2bpricenow.com * 
Virtual City * 
Dialog Tradenet * 
e-Dairy * 
1919 * 
1920 * 
Text2Teach * 
Project Mind * 
Farmers Texting Service * 
Reuters Market Light * 
Esoko * 
Manobi * 
iCow * 
Kazi560 * 
M-PESA * 
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Nonchargeable model
Under the nonchargeable model, subscribers generally do not pay to use m-ARD apps. These are
typically noncommercial services such as Ushahidi, 1919, and 1920. These services typically
aim to provide only basic market information and are likely to be developed and offered
independently—not embedded in other product marketing or promotion strategies.

Transactional model
This model charges subscriber for using m-ARD apps based on the number of transactions
conducted and shares some features with the freemium model. Examples of m-ARD apps using
this model include Virtual City, KACE, and Reuters Market Light (RML). Under this model, m-
ARD apps typically have to provide sufficient value to justify their use. Hence such services are
typically highly effective and efficient.

For example, Virtual City’s supply chain automation service enabled the Kenya Tea
Development Authority (KTDA) to shorten transaction times from 3 minutes to 22 seconds,
reduce fraud at collection points, and increase farmers’ income by 9 percent. To justify their use
and charges, these m-ARD apps may also provide hyper-local, niche, or value added information

Page 44
not available elsewhere. RML and Tradenet, for example, provide independently generated or
collected niche information and value added services such as market trades and logistics support.

Embedded services model

Pricing for this model is indirect because m-ARD app services are provided free of charge. But
the services are provided to generate demand and strengthen customer loyalty to the provider’s
primary, chargeable product or service. This model has potentially significant development
impact because the m-ARD apps offered are typically new or used innovatively to help
companies sell their primary product or service. In addition, the m-ARD apps are normally
developed and provided by large companies, which bring have significantly more resources than
other m-ARD app providers, and their benefits are relatively easy to assess because the service is
new.

However, use of this model is limited by the scope of providers’ primary products or services
because the m-ARD apps must complement them to increase sales. In addition, this model could
be used to entrench a company’s market position to the exclusion of competitors. For example,
M-PESA raised the market value of Safaricom, increased entry barriers for other operators, and
has been an integral part of Safaricom’s success in maintaining its market share over the past five
years (Wireless Intelligene 2010). The potential for market failure as this model matures implies
that regulatory intervention may be required to ensure that the development of m-ARD apps
expands beyond the original players.

Freemium model
This model cross-subsidizes basic information or SMS services by charging for advanced, value
added features, functionality, or related products and services. Value added services may include
access to market links for which providers charge membership fees or costs per transaction that
can be fixed, graduated, or based on percentages of purchase or sale value. The freemium model
can be seen as a variation of the nonchargeable model because it provides low-cost services at no
charge mainly as a marketing and promotional tool to charge for more sophisticated services
with higher costs.

The freemium model could offer significant advantages in developing m-ARD app markets
because it introduces subscribers to providers’ services, builds trust, and creates upselling
opportunities. But only a few of the m-ARD apps analyzed by the research conducted for this
report use the model. KACE offers market pricing information by radio or text messages to
attract farmers to its market resource centers, which then provide assistance with market links
such as transactions, delivery coordination, competitive pricing on inputs, and other supply chain
services. Users pay for this assistance as a percentage of the transactions, and most of KACE’s
revenues come from these fees. Manobi follows a similar strategy, offering free market price
information that is subsidized by higher-value services.

Page 45
Costs

Commercial applications
Where cost data could be obtained, a range of m-ARD apps was selected that are illustrative of
the pricing models. To have as complete a dataset as possible, capital and operating expenditures
were measured against available user and transaction target levels to compare development and
support costs with affordability (measured as a percentage of rural household income in
countries where the apps are active). Though, as noted, willingness to pay is a more relevant
measure for measuring demand for most m-ARD apps. The analysis first compares KACE,
b2bpricenow.com, and Reuters Market Light (RML). These three m-ARD apps have adopted
different models to address their costs. Table 5.3 summarizes the estimated capital and operating
expenditures per transaction for each of these apps.7

Table 5.3: Sample Commercial Mobile Applications with Low Costs

   Current or target   Incremental cost per user  Cost per user as % of 
Application  market (number)  or transaction (U.S. dollars)  household income 

      Capital  Operating  Capital  Operating 

expenditure  expenditure  expenditure  expenditure 
KACE—SMS and radio broadcast trade   1,000,000   0.40  0.50  0.07  0.8 
platform, as well as market resource 
centers 
b2bpricenow   26,000   31  2  2.51  0.15 per 
transaction 
Reuters Market Light   250,000   8  4  0.94  0.47 

Source: Authors’ Compilation.

 KACE. In its forward-looking expansion plan seeking to move from stage 1 to stage 2 of
business development, KACE is targeting about 1 million farmers and, in addition to its
one-time incremental capital expense of approximately $400,000 ($0.40 per targeted
user), would have an annual operating cost of $0.50 per user. It provides a range of
services, starting with simple market price information (which could contribute
significantly to the business revenues if the user target is reached), progressing toward
fees or commissions based on matching buyers and sellers, and finally commissions
based on successful delivery of agricultural goods (supply chain integration). The
progression from simple market information to supply chain integration is needed to
achieve its target market. If the target market of 1 million is missed by 50 percent, the
operating cost per user doubles to $1, which could require higher pricing for simple
market information. But the total package of services, with reasonable assumptions for
the number of accesses a year by each farmer, can be operated for less than 1 percent of
the typical rural farmer’s household income (well below what consumers normally spend

7
These estimates are based on publicly available information and are not necessarily accurate.
Page 46
 even on private ICT services). This promises good potential for marketing the services
profitably. KACE’s higher-value services contribute the most to its commercial viability,
though missed targets could delay commercial payback and profitability.
 B2bpricenow.com. This site targets a much smaller group—mainly agricultural
cooperatives. Its m-ARD app is based on providing a payment platform to facilitate
transactions between cooperatives and buyers, thus its cost related to household
affordability is less relevant compared with the other two examples in this set. Because
its target audience is so much smaller, its operating costs per user are higher than
KACE’s. But it shares one feature with KACE: using one income stream to cross-
subsidize another. B2bpricenow.com is expanding beyond cooperatives to individual
farmers and hopes to develop a mobile trade platform. This progression would not be
possible without its primary income from matching cooperatives and buyers.
 Reuters Market Light. RML has the highest operating cost of these three m-ARD apps:
$4 per customer based on current customer levels. This includes some startup sunk costs,
but is also believed to reflect the capital cost of starting up, expanding to another country,
or building and staffing new granular, hyper-local information collection and support
services. Its operating cost is still less than 1 percent of rural household income, even if
only half of its declared users are active at any given time. It has adopted a different
approach from KACE and b2bpricenow.com because it is not cross-subsidizing different
products. Instead, it is focused on providing agriculture-related price, weather, and other
information targeted at users based on their locations. To do this, RML builds teams that
monitor agricultural prices and other data in each location. Because of this expense,
RML’s market remains relatively small, especially relative to India’s population.

Providing useful, relevant information is costly. There is a tradeoff between the provision of
local information and scalability: local teams are needed to collect data, which means that
expansion into new areas involves the same content provision costs. Costs climb at the same rate
as new subscribers sign up. RML, for example, is not yet profitable even though it has 250,000
subscribers in 12 Indian states.

Some m-ARD app providers have found ways to overcome this problem. Local data also need to
be collated at the national level to take advantage of the best price offers. KACE’s model collects
information locally but provides farmers with national information and linkage support. Manobi
also provides different levels of local information, starting with free local pricing information
and moving toward more sophisticated information that costs subscribers more. This freemium
model allows m-ARD apps to provide hyper-local information while benefiting from economies
of scale.

In contrast to the relatively low operating costs of KACE, b2bpricenow.com, and RML,
operating costs are much higher for the three m-ARD apps—DrumNet, Dialog Tradenet, and e-
Dairy—in Table 5.4.

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 Table 5.4: Sample Commercial Mobile Applications with High Costs
   Current or target   Incremental cost per user or  Cost per user as % of 
Application  market (number)  transaction (U.S. dollars)   household income 

      Capital  Operating  Capital  Operating 

expenditure  expenditure  expenditure  expenditure 
DrumNet    5,000   57  45  8.7  6.8 
Dialog Tradenet   1,500   107  11  7.7  0.9 
e‐Dairy   300   333  20  23.9  1.4 
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

There are two explanations for the higher cost base:

 Different stages of the business cycle. DrumNet, for example, did not progress beyond the
pilot phase and was unable to take advantage of a larger market to defray costs. In
attempting to become fully operational, its high incremental costs were likely partly
responsible for its failure to secure financing. But it was expected that nonfarmers—such
as buyers, input suppliers, and banks—would provide at least half of its revenues, so
relating costs to affordability for farmers was not particularly relevant. E-Dairy is still in
the pilot phase, with a small market of about 300 farmers.
 No modular system development. DrumNet tried to provide a full supply chain integration
service from the outset and did not build a modular system like KACE or Virtual City (an
agricultural supply chain m-ARD app). But it still could have had potential if it had been
successful in refinancing and attracting high-value players such as major buyers and
banks. Tradenet initially provided only agricultural market price information. Since its
purchase by Dialog, a mobile network operator in Sri Lanka, it has become a marketplace
for various goods to broaden its target market. But this approach is not segmented by
target market; it is trying to appeal to a large single market. So opportunities for cross-
subsidies are limited. The higher operating costs for DrumNet, Tradenet, and e-Dairy
highlight the tension between low-margin SMS market information services such as
Tradenet and higher-margin linkage assistance services (such as delivery confirmation
and other supply chain integration functions) such as DrumNet. The model used by
KACE and Manobi has more potential in this regard because it can shift from low-margin
fees to high-margin fees based on more sophisticated services.

Noncommercial applications
Relative to commercial m-ARD apps, noncommercial ones are generally information-based and
use relatively simple service models. Unlike KACE, which has a sophisticated supply chain
integration model, m-ARD apps such as TXT CSC (the Philippines) and 1919 (Sri Lanka)
provide information to users at no charge. Because users are not being asked to pay for these
services, affordability is less relevant, though costs are still very low.

The three examples in Table 5.5—Farmers Texting Center (the Philippines), TXT CSC, and
1919—target markets of different sizes and each has a relatively low operating cost per
Page 48
transaction. For example, TXT CSC is an e-government program that provides government
information to citizens. It has a simple service model: text messages are received by staff, then
either forwarded to the relevant government department or, if the information is readily available,
responded to directly. The backend consists of a mobile phone, computer, and several staff
members. The cost per user is about $0.02. The challenge of the TXT CSC model is that the
information it provides to citizens is limited and expanding beyond basic information provision
is difficult. Still, basic information provision can be implemented at a low cost. The challenge of
this model is its limited lifespan and restricted future expansion.

Table 5.5: Sample Costs for Noncommercial Mobile Applications

   Current or target   Incremental cost per user or 
Application  market (number)  transaction (U.S. dollars)  

      Capital   Operating 
expenditure  expenditure  
Farmers Texting Center   36,000    0.06    0.93  

TXT CSC   12,000    0.17    0.02  

1919   1,277,500    0.05    0.12  

Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Financing

Lack of financing for m-ARD apps was one of the main findings from the case studies in Kenya,
the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. This includes some of the relatively successful cases such as
KACE, Grundfos Lifelink, Kilimo Salama, Farmers Texting Center, 1920, and DrumNet (which
was a successful pilot, although it did not advance to stage 1). The finding also reflects a
common financing gap issue that affects technology entrepreneurs in both developed and
developing countries, and is often called the “Valley of Death.”8

This report splits financing into private and public. In the private sector the main measure of
success is whether an m-app is profitable. A private investor such as a venture capitalist wants to
earn a strong rate of return on risky ventures. Public measures of success are more complex,
involving social as well as financial benefits.

Several m-ARD apps have been partly financed through commercial corporate social
responsibility (CSR) programs, a form of private financing that shares some features with public
and donor financing. Examples include Kilimo Salama in Kenya (Syngenta CSR) and
Text2Teach in the Philippines (Nokia CSR). In addition, development challenge awards such as

8
The “Valley of Death” is estimated to be the range of financing between $50,000 and $1,000,000. This is because
even in most developing countries, small and medium-size enterprises can usually borrow from family and friends
for startup capital under $50,000. For needs above $1 million, innovative enterprises can gain traction with venture
capitalists, private equity firms, and banks. See Infodev (2008) and Jaffe (2011).
Page 49
those received by Virtual City from Nokia can be considered CSR. This form of finance is
usually tied to a company’s commercial interests, but the mechanism for measuring success or
evaluating outcomes may be complex, and is certainly longer-term than purely private
investment.

The challenges of measuring success outside the traditional metric of profit and introducing a
readiness to accept lower or even no financial return for a developmentally beneficial goal is also
one of the drivers of philanthrocapitalism and social entrepreneur investment. With varying
levels of profit expectations, these investors aim to bring the traditional strengths of the private
sector to developmental, social, and public sector challenges. Philanthrocapitalists and social
entrepreneurs have pushed measures such as the double bottom line (financial and social
performance combined) and the triple bottom line (financial, social, and environmental
performance). These measures are not without difficulties, are prone to manipulation, and are
sometimes only meaningful within the socioeconomic context of a particular project and
environment.

This trend blurs the line between private and public money. In the past, private funding was
motivated entirely by profit. In the world of philanthrocapitalists and social entrepreneurs profit
is not the only measure of success. This is a relatively new phenomenon.9 For m-ARD apps,
most financing still comes from private or public sources. Drivers of the new approach—such as
working closely with projects, providing networking skills and business knowledge, and pushing
for clearly measurable outcomes—have yet to be implemented on a large scale. But there is a
good reason to seek financing for m-ARD apps from philanthrocapitalists and social
entrepreneurs.

For example, this report found that 85 percent of m-ARD apps rely on government, donor, or
CSR funding (some of the latter could possibly be classified as philanthrocapitalism) for startup
and operating costs (Figure 5.4). The financing gap is particularly wide between the pilot stage
and stage 1 (scalability) and during the transition from donor funding (usually limited to the pilot
stage) to commercial or government funding. And while there is sufficient funding at the pilot
stage, donors who provide the most funding at this stage are not operationally suited to provide
long-term funding—particularly as m-ARD app providers try to scale up. Moreover, donors are
usually not able or inclined to finance a large-scale marketing effort, often one of the key
elements needed to raise funding.

9
Concepts of philanthrocapitalism are advanced in recent books such as Morino (2010), Tierney and Fleishman
(2011), and Crutchfield, Kania, and Kramer (2011). All conclude that the concepts of philanthrocapitalism are used
by a minority of nonprofits, foundations, and donors.
Page 50
 Figure 5.4: Sources of Financing for Mobile Applications
60%
54%

50%

40%

30%

19%
20%
15%
12%

10%

0%
Governments Donors Corporate social Commercial or
responsibility private sources
programs

Source: Authors’ Compilation.

In addition, in developed countries the support infrastructure for startups is substantial and highly
liquid. In developing countries the lack of multiple sources of financing also means a lack of
liquidity, so finding sufficient financing is a major challenge.

Different funding issues for commercial and noncommercial mobile applications

Providers of commercial m-apps in the developing world face very specific financing challenges.
There is a need for financing primarily to close the gap between the pilot stage and stage 1 of the
funding cycle. An analysis by the Kenyan Capital Markets Foundation found that only two
information and communication technology (ICT) firms—both telecom companies—are listed
on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, and that small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) face an
equity gap (Capital Markets Authority 2011). These findings echo those from this report’s case
studies. There are three main reasons for the lack of private equity and venture capital (PE/VC)
funding in Kenya and other developing countries:
 Lack of firm clustering. M-app providers are geographically dispersed. Fostering
collaboration between firms and accessing capital are challenging when firms are located
far apart, especially when broadband networks are underdeveloped. Recent initiatives
such as iHub in Nairobi are trying to address this problem, in addition to providing
PE/VC firms with a single point of contact (iHub 2011).
 Lack of access to financing. There are limited funds available for a PE/VC fund. Though
there are several angel investors in Kenya, these are wealthy individuals, not PE/VC
firms.

Page 51
  Lack of a healthy ecosystem. As this report has emphasized, the most significant obstacle
to addressing the challenges of scalability for m-ARD apps is the lack of a platform that
links stakeholders to build a healthy m-apps ecosystem.

Funding for noncommercial m-ARD apps faces the same challenges as commercial ones but
with one basic difference: government-supported m-ARD apps such as Sri Lanka’s 1919 and
1920 rarely face the pressures of finding funding and of scaling up. Such m-apps will likely
continue to operate for as long as governments have sufficient budgets for the initiatives.

As a result, noncommercial m-ARD apps often lack clear goals and assessments of their costs
and benefits, creating a major obstacle to increasing value for citizens and accessing commercial
funding. For example, 1919 provides access to government information by SMS. One measure of
success is the number of SMS messages that it receives each month. On this measure, 1919 could
be considered a success. But this measure does not take into account the costs of setting up the
service or its value to citizens and the sponsoring government department. Another major
challenge for 1919 is compelling other government departments to respond to citizen requests.
The 1919 m-app is not integrated with other departments’ databases, and there is no way for
citizens to check the status of specific information or service requests.10

Financing forms, types, and cycles

To better understand the challenges of financing m-ARD apps, Table 5.6 summarizes financing
forms and types and financing cycles at the pilot stage, stage 1, and stage 2 of business
development. Various combinations of financing may be appropriate at different times in the
financing cycles.

10
SMSONE, in Maharastra, India, is an example of an m-app that integrates government services. It allows residents
of the state to register for SMS alerts on information relevant to their daily lives, such as water and electricity
supplies, traffic congestion, and bill payment reminders.
Page 52
 Table 5.6: Forms, Types, and Sources of Financing for the Applications Studied
Types of financing
Forms of financing (examples) Typical sources
Grants and sub-grants Direct grants Governments
(mainly pilot stage and Grant matching Donors
stage 1) Public-private partnerships Private companies
Corporate social Foundations
responsibility funds Trust funds
Equity Seed / startup Angel financing
(pilot stage and stage 1) Stages 1 and 2 Venture capitalists
Syndicate Institutional investors
Crowdsourcing / social Friends and family
networking
Others, including business Franchises Business partners
relationship-based and Joint ventures Commercial banks
asset-backed Licensing Factors
(stages 1 and 2) Leasing
Factoring
Loans and debt Mezzanine Commercial banks
(mostly stage 2) Commercial loans Governments
Loan guarantees Donors
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

Different forms of financing are relevant at different stages in the m-ARD app business cycle.
For example, during the pilot stage the Grameen Foundation uses donor funding to conduct
ethnographic research and needs assessments, develop prototypes, establish partnerships with
key m-app ecosystem players, generate and package content, pilot solutions and business models,
and achieve limited or moderate scale. If the pilot proves successful and operations mature,
social investment funding is pursued or the operation is spun out into locally owned social
businesses with lower cost bases. In this model, donor funding is critical at the early stage to
investigate market failures and innovate where the private sector sees excessive risk. Once a
model can be proven effective, patient commercial capital can be obtained.

Possible financing solutions

There are various possible ways to address the financing gaps facing m-ARD apps. Each comes
toward the same solution from a different direction—public, private, or a combination.

M-apps development funds. Donor funds have supported many m-ARD app startups. The
challenge is moving from startup funding to longer-term sustainable financing. Donors could set
up m-app development funds to provide financing for m-apps based on their potential for
advancing development. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and U.K. Department for
International Development (DFID), for example, are interested in accelerating viable m-app
models and possibly continuing to support them in stage 1 (scalability).

Page 53
The preceding analysis on m-app ecosystems has established that funding of individual m-apps
does not address the systemic challenges facing providers. Thus donors have begun focusing on
some of these challenges. For example, the Mobile Application Labs—supported by Nokia, the
government of Finland, and the World Bank Group-based infoDev, with locations in Kenya and
South Africa—is one approach to supporting clusters of m-app developers (infoDev 2008). As a
result of such interventions, Kenya has become the fastest-growing m-app economy in the
developing world, with the number of Kenyan m-apps jumping from 2 in April 2010 to more
than 40 in January 2011 (Nokia 2011).

Apex funds. Limited financing for m-ARD apps could be addressed by creating apex
funds. Such funds would also provide critical business skills to m-app providers for their next
stages of growth. The funds would be operated by private equity or venture capital (PE/VC)
groups and would provide investment capital from donors or development-oriented investment
agencies such as IFC. The PE/VC groups would reallocate the financing to commercial m-ARD
app providers as seed or matching funds, as these providers are typically unable to access
funding provided by markets and agencies such as IFC.

The PE/VC groups might have to accept lower returns from m-ARD apps than other investments
would generate. But that might be feasible as part of the groups’ philanthrocapitalism initiatives
and lower expectations for returns. Unlike other funding mechanisms described in this report,
apex fund would allow m-ARD app providers to access skills for scaling up and replication
through professional funding arrangements. Apex funds would:

 Focus on providing a high volume of small loans—usually between about $100,000 and
$500,000—compared with the larger thresholds from sources such as IFC, which has a
minimum funding amount of $5 million.
 Assess projects and make loans in a much faster, more responsive, and agile manner,
with fewer hands-on controls, than is typically required by donors.
 Warn investors to expect lower returns than traditional venture capital investments, at
least as institutions and procedures are being built up.
The apex fund approach could include more than one phase of financing. But as this chapter has
noted, different vehicles are used at different stages, and it is important to have a complete
financial ecosystem in place.

Universal service funds (USFs). USFs and similar bodies are administered by
government departments (the least desirable approach), regulators, or public-private corporate
entities created to deliver ICT-related applications to previously unreached rural areas. Though
the skills to manage and allocate such resources have been developed over many years, most
USFs would require sensitization and capacity development to move into the m-app field. The
USF approach has several advantages for commercial m-apps and could aid the development of
the m-apps ecosystem. More than 70 countries have active USFs and up to half of these would be
able to provide financing with little delay. The advantages of using USFs are:

Page 54
  USFs leverage private investment because they are usually commercial market-based and
offer only smart-subsidy investments (which can still be a substantial portion of startup
capital). In other words, the subsidies are given competitively to commercial entities
committed to rolling out self-sustaining service while also recognizing that some areas
and projects need a kick-start to encourage investment. Awards are made based on
commercial proposals to meet specific targets developed by USFs.
 A USF could be viewed as representing a significant country commitment to m-apps
development by the government and ICT industry, using resources collected from the
private sector.
 USFs often have extensive financial resources that they have been building up for several
years through levies on revenues of telecommunications operators. Most USFs have
distributed less than the funds they have received and are looking for good projects.
 USFs have started developing the skills to form public-private partnerships (PPPs),
including through other forms of financing such as tender competitions seeking the
lowest subsidies to deliver ICT services in rural areas.
 USFs promote fully privatized commercial market development through the competitive
smart-subsidy approach, which can create focused interest and leverage private
investment.
 Some USFs have already made commitments to supporting ICT applications. This can be
directed toward m-apps as universal access targets are met.
 Significant resources have already been spent providing the human capital skills needed
to support both infrastructure and services rollout in rural areas. Thus these skills may
only require a strategic reorientation.
 In many developing countries the amount of money required to bring change to m-app
development and use could be small relative to the funds held by USFs. Thus enough
funds would be available to support m-app ecosystem development—assuming that the
administrative capacity of USFs can be retargeted.

USFs are not without controversy even though most have been dispersing funds for several years.
Many USFs in developing countries have dispersed relatively small percentages—33 percent, on
average—of the funds they hold, and utilities tend to see USFs as additional taxes with few
benefits. Still, the principle of USF funding is clear because unfettered free markets are unlikely
to deliver goods to all citizens. There is a collaborative role for government and the private
sector to play in providing services to areas where they are not profitable. Many USFs are
starting to do better at disbursing funds and providing services to areas that had not had access to
them. This institutional learning can be used to deliver m-apps. Aid agency activities such as the
U.S. Agency’s for International Development’s Global Broadband and Innovations initiative are
providing support to USFs to encourage increased disbursement of funds.

As with PPPs (see below), donors could have considerable leverage in helping USFs adapt their
procurement strategies into the m-apps field by demonstrating and promoting the potential of m-

Page 55
apps to fulfill universal access goals in rural areas, helping tailor terms of reference (TOR) and
request for proposal (RFP) documentation to m-app development, and redirecting the focus of
USFs into the m-apps market.

Public-private partnerships. PPPs provide a framework for governments to exploit the

synergies between the public and private spheres and to access the funds and skills needed for
noncommercial m-apps in particular. A major strength of the private sector is its evaluation of
costs relative to benefits. This is usually driven by the profit motive and the personal investments
of project developers. Hence a synergy exists between the public sector’s ability to finance m-
apps that provide public goods such as access to government information and the private sector’s
ability to assess a strategy’s costs and benefits.

PPPs were first developed for infrastructure projects that the private sector had insufficient
resources to fund and the public sector had insufficient skills to manage. PPPs have since been
successful in delivering public health outcomes. For example, in OECD countries and Brazil,
China, India, and the Russian Federation it is projected that 5 percent of healthcare spending will
go to infrastructure and 95 percent to services between 2010 and 2020 (PWC 2010).

Some of the most successful PPPs have involved telecommunications, energy, transportation,
and healthcare. One of the largest PPPs has been in U.K. healthcare starting in the 1990s, when
the U.K. government realized that the only way to overcome decades of underinvestment in the
National Healthcare System (NHS) was through infrastructure partnerships with the private
sector.

This is a particularly opportune time to use PPPs for service delivery because they have grown
tremendously over the past two decades and perceptions have changed on how they deliver
services. Since the 1990s PPPs have expanded across the globe and have been particularly
successful in developing countries. The perception that PPPs are valid only for infrastructure is
based on the number of successful infrastructure projects supported by PPPs. But this is quickly
changing as governments realize that PPPs can also be used to deliver services. For example, the
NHS began to experiment with PPPs in 2003 to shorten waiting times for medical services (PWC
2010). The pressure to use PPPs in areas besides infrastructure will only increase as governments
face mounting deficits stemming from the global financial crisis of recent years. Governments’
ability to leverage private investment is going to be a critical tool in delivering services.

But various issues must be taken into account to use PPPs for m-app development. One key issue
is measuring the results of PPPs. The traditional value for money metric used for infrastructure
PPPs cannot be easily modified for service delivery because the latter involves far more players.
For example, an assessment must include all the major service delivery players and so would
have to include all m-app ecosystem stakeholders—such as mobile network operators, financial
institutions, agents, content providers, providers, and handset manufacturers and distributors.
Hence the system for assessing PPPs must be modified to include metrics for each of these
Page 56
players, and these metrics must be included in PPP contracts. The downside of this approach is
that a uniform set of metrics is not available because the context, goals, and m-app ecosystem
players will differ for each service delivery PPP.

Governments should also establish clear TOR, RFP, and associated procurement mechanisms
based on clear business and development goals for m-apps. In addition, governments will need to
be creative but cautious in terms of defining goals for m-apps because they tend to be more
complex for service delivery PPPs. E-Dairy and Text2Teach provide examples of such service
delivery goals and the structuring of PPPs:

 E-Dairy in Sri Lanka is illustrative of a modified PPP approach to m-app development

where the focus is on outcomes instead of infrastructure. E-Dairy is an m-ARD app that
aims to increase milk production through increased pregnancy rates in cows. The increase
in pregnancy rates can be achieved through timely access to veterinary services. Dairy
farmers access a database that provides information on timing and can request services
directly through the app. The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka provided half of the startup
funding for e-Dairy. A grassroots community development organization called the
Dambadeniya Development Foundation provides the m-app’s technology and operational
management.
 Text2Teach is a program in the Philippines that seeks to enable teachers and students to
access more than 900 multimedia educational materials using SMS. The program’s goal
is to narrow the digital divide by improving teaching of basic education and making
learning more fun for students. It has improved science, math, and English results by 11-
19 percent for 120,000 fifth and sixth graders in more than 200 schools. The innovative
m-ARD app highlights the potential for collaboration between NGOs, the private sector,
and government. It is financed by a grant from Nokia that covers project management,
implementation, mobile phone costs, and most operational costs. The program is
managed by the Ayala Foundation, which is tasked with raising matching funds from the
public sector to ensure the program’s sustainability and impact.

Collaboration between the public and private sectors enables the program to address education
needs not just in specific areas but for the entire public elementary school system. The central
government provides 23 percent of the funding, schools and local branches of the Department of
Education provide 3 percent, and the Text2Teach Alliance provides 74 percent. Though not a
true PPP in that goals and measurements are not defined in a PPP contract, it reflects the kind of
methodology that could be used for m-app PPPs.

The use of PPPs in developing countries has often suffered from poor planning, design, and
measurement as well as unclear goals. Hence donors and other development practitioners may
need to provide sufficient capacity building for both public and private entities interested in PPPs.

Page 57
6. Conclusion

Mobile applications for agricultural and rural development (m-ARD apps) offer innovative,
dynamic, interdisciplinary services. These new services could raise incomes and create more
opportunities for people in rural and underserved communities in developing countries as well as
stakeholders throughout the ecosystem for m-ARD apps.

Because m-ARD apps are developing rapidly, the observations in this report provide only a
snapshot of this field’s evolution. Still, the lessons summarized here and in the case studies
should show policymakers and development practitioners how great a potential role that m-ARD
apps could play in development. The report’s main findings are:

1. Enabling platforms are likely the most important factor for m-ARD apps to move from
the pilot stage to the scalability and sustainability stages—beyond donor and government
funding. Such platforms are based on the links between handsets, software applications, and
payment mechanisms that facilitate interactions among stakeholders in the m-app ecosystem.
Platforms can provide access to more users, offer effective technical standards, and
incorporate payment mechanisms. These outcomes can facilitate both demand and supply
and faster recovery of investments.

A developing country platform faces two main obstacles: the lack of commonly accepted
payment mechanisms and of uniform approval procedures for m-apps. Whatever the payment
mechanism—operator billing, mobile money (m-money), or, in the future, credit cards—it is
crucial to the success of m-apps. Countries without a payment mechanism risk falling behind
on the development of m-ARD apps. And a simple, uniform m-app approval procedure can
link m-app providers with potentially millions of mobile subscribers, encouraging innovation
and facilitating competition so that the m-ARD apps with the highest value are scaled up
quickly.

2. Several other mechanisms, such as incubators and central hubs, could support the
development of ecosystems for m-ARD apps. For example, a geographic cluster that
enables m-ARD app providers to work together, such as Nairobi’s iHub, can spur innovation.
These locations provide an environment conducive to m-app development by offering high-
speed Internet and other communications facilities. They may also attract commercial
funders looking for an easy way to invest in m-apps.

Accordingly, efforts to develop enabling environments for m-ARD apps should initially
focus on supporting the creation of a common platform or platforms that provide uniform
standards and payment mechanisms, and helping develop innovative m-app ecosystems by
supporting providers, financiers, third party distributors, and other stakeholders.

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3. The hyper-local nature of many m-ARD apps makes scaling up challenging:
 Many m-ARD apps start small and focus on meeting specific customer needs, often with
donor support. They tend to grow at a rate that matches capabilities, with little thought
given to scaling up beyond a certain threshold.
 Rural users of m-ARD apps value highly customized information and services. For
example, farmers often need market pricing information for towns close enough for easy
transport of goods. This imposes costs on content development and supply, which are
then localized, and could hinder the achievement of scale economies because customers
will be clustered in areas that each need their own content development.
 Consumers in rural areas of developing countries usually have low education and literacy
levels and so require onsite demonstration or training in the use and benefits of m-ARD
apps. Such support is costly.

In environments where information is scarce, leveraging existing resources will be crucial for
success. Governments and donors could support the development of m-ARD apps by making
publicly available accurate, granular data such as weather forecasts with integrated flood and
drought information at the village or community levels. Providers of m-ARD apps are
unlikely to be able to collect such data as part of their business operations, and its provision
will encourage providers to innovate. In addition, m-ARD apps that can aggregate and
customize content from different sources will have an advantage.

4. Some m-ARD apps are achieving scalability, replicability, and sustainability. Despite
various challenges, a number of m-ARD apps are doing well, with a good balance of cost,
marketing, and pricing strategies. Scalability is premised on several factors, including
affordability, demand, and effectiveness in reaching target markets. Some m-ARD apps
appear to be highly replicable. But operational issues must be taken into account, such as
local languages and the ability of public service providers to compel other agencies to answer
inquiries.

Sustainability is easier to achieve when initial capital costs are covered by governments or
donors and subsequent operating costs are relatively low. Commercial m-ARD apps need to
improve or expand their services in response to user needs and ensure that they provide
enough value to generate sustainable demand and revenues—increasing users’ willingness to
pay and overcoming ability to pay issues even at low economies of scale. Commercial m-
ARD apps should also pursue innovative alternative revenue streams, such as advertising,
and consider various pricing models to attract subscribers and build customer loyalty.

Noncommercial m-ARD apps should have clear and measurable goals, outputs, and
outcomes.

Page 59
5. About 85 percent of m-ARD apps rely on government, donor, or corporate social
responsibility (CSR) funding for startup and operating costs. Yet there is a funding gap
for m-ARD apps moving from the pilot stage to the scalability and sustainability stages—
indicating that m-ARD app providers need to have realistic, multistage financing plans from
the start of business planning, to prepare for likely shortfalls later in the financing cycle.

In addition, seed funders for m-ARD apps should be aware that they are unlikely to be
suitable financiers at later stages. Instead, they should encourage and facilitate development-
oriented professional financiers who can address gaps in the funding cycle and provide
private sector business skills—such as for management, marketing, and networking—that
will be critical after the pilot stage.

Providers of m-ARD apps should consider a variety of financing methods, including apex
funds, universal service funds (USFs) restructured to support m-ARD apps, public-private
partnerships (especially to support noncommerical m-ARD apps), and special purpose donor
funds. M-ARD apps could also attract investment from social entrepreneurs and
philanthrocapitalists. Providers should carefully assess the benefits and drawbacks of all
these financing vehicles.

6. Enabling regulations and policies are crucial. M-apps have a relatively long history in the
developing world. Mobile money was the first innovation, providing clear benefits in
countries such as Kenya and the Philippines, and regulatory forbearance was one of the key
reasons for its success.

Adopting regulatory forbearance during the creation of a new service means that firms
experimenting with a new service are given space to be innovative and rewarded for taking
risks, with the leading firm gaining first-mover advantage. The need for regulatory
intervention can then be reassessed based on the maturity of the market, with a focus on
ensuring a dynamic regulatory perspective to encourage development and innovation of m-
ARD apps and possible intervention in cases of market failure.
Another helpful step is introducing technical education policies that support m-app operating
systems. Finally, rigorous impact assessments should be conducted to quantify the economic
and social benefits of m-ARD apps. The findings of such assessments would support
evidence-based policymaking and direct financing to interventions with the greatest benefits.

Page 60
Annex A: Typology of Agricultural and Rural Development

Sub-Sector Segment Development Challenges

Agriculture,  Livelihood  Transition from subsistence to income generation

Animal (Risk raking & scale up is difficult without
husbandry, external support)
Fisheries &  Small-scale farmers face relatively high
Forestry transaction costs
 Agro- support (e.g., weather,  Detrimental / catastrophic impact of storms or
advertising, emergency) draught (see rural finance/insurance)
 Disaster management
 Agro-marketing / trade (e.g.,  Lack of contact with local / regional markets
advertising, pricing,  Lack of access or effective contact between the
strategic link-ups) various players (producer, buyer, credit/ bank) in
agric. markets
 Control of information & resources by middlemen
 Geographic/transportation challenges to trade
 Distribution, Logistics &  Inefficiencies, delays & costs in collection,
Traceability transportation & record keeping
 Fraud at produce collection points affecting
farmer incomes
 Cost of implementing solutions (e.g., cost of
placing RFID tags on fruit)
 Other rural SME & micro-  Financing for start-ups
businesses
 Extension services  Access to fundamental knowledge re farm & crop
management, etc., timely assistance
 Literacy & capacity building challenges
 Research & Innovation (e.g.  Access to information & finance (see rural
new supply chain / business finance)
models)  Access to most recent information on crops, pests,
etc.
Resource  Water  Lack of wells & irrigation
Management  Water contamination
 Cost of water
 Challenges in scaling up solutions
 Land  Land ownership
 Soil erosion
 Appropriate fertilizer use
 Environment & Climate  Impact of climate change

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Labor,  Employment  Lack of information, especially geog. specific info
Migration and – i.e. jobs available in a specific region
Human  Lack of jobs
Development
 Education, learning &  Low literacy, especially among women
training  Costs of schooling
 Rural Youth  Opportunities, mentoring, skills, finance
 Rural Women opportunities  Opportunities for business & self-betterment
 SMEs and micro-businesses  Training & mentoring
/ private sector development
 Migration  Urbanization
 Cost of Remittances, especially small scale
Governance /  E-Government and  Corruption
Political administration relevant to  Opportunity to consult political leaders
rural development,  Empowerment & participation
including:  Information about issues
o Census & social status
related data collection or
enquiry
o Election & opinion
management
 Awareness raising  Availability of programs to rural people
 Other m-government  Registrations of all personal data, companies, land
services ownership, etc.
 Taxation & other levies
Rural  Mobile Money, m-Banking  Access to appropriate finance
Finance, and micro-finance related  Regulatory, technological, literacy challenges
Infrastructure services
& ICT  Agricultural insurance  Detrimental / catastrophic impact of storms or
services draught
 Access to insurance for small farmers, as well as
understanding & trust
 Transport  Infrastructure (roads, vehicles, etc.)
 Cost of transportation in rural areas
 Broadcasting & program  Potential for local & regional participation &
related voice
 Printed media  Distribution, choice of printed media
Source: Authors’ Compilation.

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Annex B: Information Sheet Used for Desk Research on Mobile
Applications
Segment Name of Application Country(s) / Region
i.e., Which of Typology Segments
Segment / Activity
i.e., which segment in the Rural Development Typology
Description of Application
E.g., Sale of crop insurance to farmers with seed purchase via M-PESA. Note whether it is purely information or transaction
based
Technology Technical development path
E.g., voice, video, SMS, email, GPS, multi-media Note any past or expected changes and what impact
technological change could have on the application and its
viability
Leading Ecosystem Player Lead role(s)
E.g., mobile network operator, Bank,
ISP, Farmers’ Union, Commercial
Agent
Business Model / Rationale
E.g., Market differentiation, clear revenue/profit potential (describe)
Other key players Roles Incentives / Business model
1
2
3, etc.
Year of commencement Maturation Cycle Position Status
Emerging / Expanding / Mature E.g., Pilot / Rolling out / Established
Comment on maturation / status of development

Costs of the application & evidence of cost recovery & profit/sustainability,

E.g., Development of the technical systems & content; maintenance & skills
Description of benefit & impact for beneficiaries
Identify the target users, describe the benefits they receive & the impacts, direct &/or indirect.
Quantifiable benefits
Identify any evident quantifiable measures of benefit & summarize any economic or social analysis contained in the source
material.
SWORB Strengths Weakness
[May be summary
of other sections] Opportunities Risks & Barriers

Market potential assessment

E.g., Will the application grow? Is it valuable? Focus on user demand & service provider sustainability for the service
Replicability / hurdles / issues
Can it grow elsewhere? Will it grow naturally, or are there hurdles? E.g., Needs dominant player, needs regulatory change,
investment too high
Further study / research questions Select for case study
Yes / No
Contact Comments on contacts made, arrangements, etc.

Page 63
Annex C: Types of Mobile Applications by Subsector

This annex contains a listing of all m-apps for rural development identified worldwide, arranged
by Subsector and Segment following the classification of Annex A: Rural Development
Typology. It also provides a basic description of each application, the target users, country or
countries of implementation, and status (whether active, planning, pilot or no longer active).

All applications listed here have their own individual entry using the structured case study
information sheets in Annex B. However the structured data is not presented in this report in the
interest of length.

To assist with cross-referencing from this annex to Annex E entries, the Annex E Index is
included here on the next page. The 79 applications which have a fairly substantial or
comprehensive entry in Annex E are shaded in this document. The number of shaded entries may
increase as more information becomes available through further research.

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

Agriculture, n/a
Animal
husbandry,
Fisheries &
Forestry
 Livelihood
Agriculture, Nokia Life Tools Nokia Life Tools is a software suite General public, China, India, Active
Animal embedded in certain Nokia phones to farmers Indonesia
husbandry, provide agricultural, educational and
Fisheries & entertainment services to developing
Forestry country markets
 Agro- Reuters Market Light It provides localized and personalized Farmers, India Active
support information via SMS text messages on agricultural
weather, market prices, local and businesses or
international agriculture and commodity associations
news, and crop advisory tips enabling
farmers to make informed decisions, reduce
waste and maximize their profits.
DatAgro The DatAgro project is taking advantage of Farming Chile, Latin Active
the high penetration rate of cellphones in cooperatives America
Latin America to allow rural farming
cooperatives to define the types of
information most critical to their lives and
livelihoods and receive it via text messages.
SoukTel SoukTel is a cellphone-based service that Job seekers, Palestinian Active
uses SMS technology to link people with employers Territories
jobs and connect aid agencies with people
who need help.
LifeLines The system’s database which stores the Farmers, rural India Active
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) teachers
received in the service, comprises a list of
more than 350,000 questions and answers
currently. Education service was introduced
to provide value added and critical
academic support to teachers in remote rural
areas for their day to day academic
transactions.
e-Dairy Created awareness among small dairy Small dairy Sri Lanka Active
farmers in sending SMS utilizing their farmers
mobiles / CDMA / Touch button screen and
the internet to obtain their Animal Health,
veterinary and other related just in time
dairy extension services. Further provided
training & development activities in
Computer usage for the youth of farmer’s
families / Livestock development officers /
Veterinary surgeons. Developed database
backed, SMS enabled dairy farmer / service
provider tracking / messaging software and
touch screen software.
mKRISHI The mKRISHI application enables farmers Farmers India Active
to send queries, comprising of text, voice
and pictures, specific to their land and crop
to agricultural experts, using their mobile
phones. The mKRISHI ecosystem provides
an integrated view of the farmers profile,
farming history, and the required farm
parameters on a console at a remote
location to an expert. Farmers can also send
pictures of their crops and pests captured
with mobile phone cameras; sensors
provide farm specific soil and crop data,
weather stations provide microclimate
details and voice based querying system
gives freedom to the farmers to ask any

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
query in their local (natural) language. After
analysis of the available information, the
expert’s advice on the farmer’s query is
provided on the farmer’s mobile phone.
FADECO Telecenter & FRC 100.8 FM has signed a contract with a Farmers Tanzania Active
Community Radio SMS management company in Dar es
Salaam and has been allocated two short
code numbers. The question is delivered
directly to our computer via a Web
managed system. We are therefore able to
print it off, respond directly or email the
question to our experts. The farmer receives
a received note on his/ her mobile phone
immediately to confirm the message is
received at FADECO. After the question/
request is processed, we make a radio
program with the response.
Weather Application The application allows anyone with a General Uganda Active
(Grameen) mobile phone to send and receive text population
messages to find out the local weather
forecast by city or district.
LIRNEasia / HJS Gherkin farmers in Sri Lanka were given Gherkin farmers Sri Lanka No
Traceability App mobile phones with a Sinhala menu-based longer
application that allows farmers to send and active
receive information related their crops.
Behtar Zindagi Behtar Zindagi is a mobile and IVR based Rural residents India Active
information service comprised of
information services for Agriculture
(information on life cycle of crops),
Weather Alerts and Advisories, Commodity
Prices, Coastal and Inland Fisheries (fishing
zones, wind speed, wave height), Livestock,
Health, Rural Finance and Education.
Agriculture, Esoko The platform provides automatic and Agri-business, N. Sudan, Active
Animal personalized price alerts, buy and sell NGOs, Burkina Faso,
husbandry, offers, bulk SMS messaging, stock counts government, Cote d’Ivoire,
Fisheries & and SMS polling. Markets, commodities, farmers, traders Ghana, Nigeria,
Forestry languages and currencies are easily Mali, Rwanda,
 Agro- configured. Esoko also offers strategy, Tanzania,
marketing / support and trainings to projects rolling out Zambia, Kenya,
trade MIS. Mozambique,
Uganda, Malawi,
Mozambique,
Madagascar
Google Trader Google Trader helps buyers and sellers to Rural producers, Uganda Active
(Grameen) find each other. Users can broadcast a consumers
message by sending an SMS, allowing
them, for example, to list the products that
they are selling or to find space on a truck
to take their goods to market.
DrumNet At the core of DrumNet’s service provision Agricultural Kenya Active
is an IT platform that is compatible with the suppliers
Internet, mobile phone networks, and other
wireless devices. The platform allows
DrumNet to offer unique products like SMS
scouting, data mapping and tailored
reporting – be it on market trends, weather,
prospective partners, or related requests.
Manobi With Xam Marsé, the latest market Farmers, traders, Senegal, South Active
information system on SMS and the hoteliers Africa
Internet developed by Manobi, Senegalese
farmers, traders, hoteliers, and housewives
can now receive free daily text messages
containing information on the product of
their choice on any selected market.

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Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

WAMIS-NET WAMIS-NET is a Network of Market Farmers West Africa Active

Information Systems from Benin, Burkina
Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Niger, Mali,
Senegal, Togo, and Nigeria. Together they
provide to all stakeholders up to date and
accurate information on 400 rural and urban
agricultural commodity markets via
different media. The network monitors the
development of the agricultural sector
through the collection and publication of
related statistics and analytical reports.
Soko Hewani Offers and bids are announced on the Soko Farmers, agro- Kenya Active
Hewani program. Listeners, mostly SMEs
smallholder farmers and agro SMEs, are
given an opportunity to phone, send SMS,
IVR or e-mail messages into the radio
program and bid on the offers, or offer on
the bids. The radio program staff on standby
during the Soko Hewani broadcast then
match the offers and bids, using mobile
phone calls and SMS, or reference back to
the specific MRC which submitted the offer
or bid for further negotiation and conclusion
of deals.
CELAC The project has a database of phone Farmers, Uganda Active
numbers to whom local agro-related Community
information is sent every Monday. Development
Workers,
Agricultural
Extension
Workers
First Mile Project The project encourages people in isolated Small farmers, Tanzania Active
rural communities to use mobile phones, e- traders,
mail and the Internet to share their local processors
experiences and good practices, learning
from one another. While communication
technology is important, real success
depends on building trust and collaboration
along the market chain. Ultimately farmers
and others involved develop relevant local
knowledge and experience and share it –
even with people in distant communities –
to come up with new ideas.
China Mobile Rural The Information Network is a service Rural residents, China Active
Information Network platform built to provide information rural businesses
regarding the needs of rural residents, rural and rural
businesses and rural authorities. In 2009, to authorities
better serve rural residents, agricultural
enterprises and rural governments, we
completed the third full-scale upgrade of
our Rural Information Network, enhancing
operational capabilities and allowing for
needs and services for new product
development, production, and distribution
as well as a centrally-shared information
database to be accessed and utilized across
the country.
b2bpricenow b2bpricenow.com is an integrated e- Farmers, agri- Philippines Active
commerce m-commerce program that has business
an agriculture e-marketplace that provides
up-to-the-minute price updates and other
market information as well as money
movements through the integrated solution.
Farmers Information Important tips on growing crops are relayed Farmers Uganda No
Communication from the Uganda National Farmers longer
Management (FICOM) Federation headquarters to district level active
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Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
offices, and then to 24 ‘village phone
centers’, in which each farmer’s group
owns a mobile phone. The farmers also
send and receive SMS messages with
updates on market prices, saving at times a
whole day’s travel to market.
Agricultural Market Market investigators collect up-to-date Farmers Bangladesh No
Information Systems agricultural commodities prices information longer
(AMIS) from a grower’s – level market on market active
days and send price information using text
messaging over cell phones into a database
managed on a SMS Server, which in turn
would be accessible to clients requesting
price information for agricultural products
through a text message request.
GL-CRSP Livestock LINKS is a Livestock Information Network Farmers, traders Ethiopia, Kenya, Active
Information Network and and Knowledge System which provides Tanzania
Knowledge System regular livestock prices and volume
(LINKS) information on most of the major livestock
markets in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania
along with information on forage
conditions, disease outbreak, conflict and
water supply to support decision making at
multiple scales.
Infotrade Infotrade provides critically analyzed Farmers, traders Uganda Active
information collected from 20 district
markets in Uganda covering a total of 46
commodities. Data is collected thrice
weekly, verified and posted on a Website.
Information can be accessed by email, or
directly on a mobile phone.
Ratin SMS To assist the stakeholders in the grain Farmers Kenya, Tanzania, Active
industry that cannot access commodity Uganda
prices through internet, EAGC initiated an
SMS facility which has been tested and it’s
now operational. SMS codes for Kenya,
Tanzania and Uganda were set up and
tested by CELLNET-Kenya Ltd. RATIN
SMS is a low-cost, highly implementable
cell phone based platform that seeks to
redress lack of market information.
Foodnet and Farmgain Data on prices, traded volumes, market Farmers, traders Uganda Active
flow, growing conditions and other relevant
information is collected from villages and
market centers and, together with relevant
national and regional information is
disseminated in local languages by local
FM radio stations. The project receives and
disseminates instant reports through SMS
on changing market prices. Both the
national and localized market information
projects are fully integrated, utilizing one
central information processing facility, thus
reducing cost and augmenting local
information with national and regional
market information of relevance to the local
target area.
Dialog Tradenet Dialog Telekom, together with Govi Gnana Farmers Sri Lanka Active
Seva (GGS) launched a service to deliver
spot and forward agricultural commodity
price information via mobile phones. The
service is based on Dialog’s Tradenet
platform – and derives on-line agri-produce
price information from three Dedicated
Economic Centers at Dambulla, Meegoda
and Narahenpita. Dialog Tradenet is a

Page 68
Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
repository for national-level market
information built on a suite of digital
technologies. Tradenet encompasses the
collation, comparison, qualification and
subsequent dissemination of trade
enablement information to large numbers of
stakeholders minimizing information
arbitrage.
Mandi Bhav Tata Teleservices (TTSL) partnered with Farmers India Active
Impetus Technologies to launch a Mandi
Bhav as a VAS targeting rural farmers. Via
this service, subscribers on the Tata
Indicom network can get real-time spot
market prices on 500 commodities from
over 3,000 large markets (mandis) across
India. The service is targeted toward
farmers and agricultural commodity traders
who need updated information on current
prices of various commodities across the
country.
KRIBHCO Reliance Reliance Telecommunications and Krishak Agricultural India In pilot
Kisan Limited Bharati Cooperative Limited (KRIBHCO), value-chain
a fertilizer producing cooperative, formed a
joint venture in June 2009, called
KRIBHCO Reliance Kisan Ltd. This JV
was again primarily a rural distribution
model for telecom and nontelecom
products. Reliance, in late 2009, announced
a full suite of upcoming VAS targeting
mGov services in Maharashtra and Kerala
which would include market price
information as well.
Compañía Argentina de CAGSA is a major food broker in Agricultural Argentina Active
Granos (CAGSA) Argentina; they simplify the logistics of value-chain
transporting harvested grain and corn to
their distribution centers, deliver supplies
such as fertilizer, and provide various agri-
business services to their members.
Syncrologix Mobile Solutions’ SmartTasks
application is an application for the
BlackBerry Enterprise Solution. It offers a
way to build BlackBerry-specific reporting
and data capturing forms that process
requests for various CAGSA services.
Portal CONAPROLE Access to information through Internet Dairy producers Uruguay Active
connection and providing SMS services to
cooperative partners with information on
their referrals, quality of milk delivered,
receivable balances, detail of liquidations
and purchases, as well as general
information about the Cooperative’s
activities, information and connections.
Virtual City AgriManagr AgriManagr automates produce purchasing Workers in dairy, Kenya Active
transactions and reduce your costs while tea, coffee and
improving relationships with your cotton sectors
customers and suppliers. Virtual City’s
AgriManagr solution has been used in the
Dairy, Tea, Coffee and Cotton industries.
Mkulima Farmer Mkulima FIS is a farmer information Farmers Kenya Not yet
Information Service resource and helpline available over mobile active
phones and the Web. It is a mobile IVR
(Interactive Voice Response), service that
uses USSD (Unstructured Supplementary
Services Data) to lead a farmer through a
set of options as they seek information for a
particular issue.

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

iCow – Green Dreams iCow is a voice based mobile app Dairy farmers Kenya Not yet
developed for the dairy industry. iCow uses active
voice prompts to help farmers monitor their
dairy cow fertility cycle from the time the
cow is inseminated until she delivers.
Agriculture,
Animal
husbandry,
Fisheries &
Forestry
 Other rural
SME &
micro-
businesses
Agriculture, DigitalICS To improve the efficiency of their Agricultural Mexico Active
Animal certification and inspection processes, associations
husbandry, CEPCO introduced a new system that uses
Fisheries & software called DigitalICS. The m-app is
Forestry used by internal inspectors who visit each
 Extension plot of land and fill out a survey regarding
services the farmer’s growing practices, the status of
the land plot and the farmer’s equipment.
Inspectors can record audio and take
pictures to augment the survey with visual
evidence, questions and comments from
farmers and other kinds of qualitative data.
The survey data is uploaded to a Web-based
application that helps evaluators review the
inspections and take appropriate action.
Farmer’s Friend Farmer’s Friend (Powered by Google SMS) Farmers Uganda Active
(Grameen) offers farmers an affordable and targeted
way to search for agricultural tips through a
SMS-based database. Keywords in the
query are matched against the database and
the farmer receives a reply with a tip related
to his or her query terms.
mAgri (IKSL, IFFCO, A voice message service which provides Farmers India Active
GSMA) agricultural advice in the form of minute-
long voice messages in local languages.
Farmers receive five messages, each one
minute long every day, except on Sundays.
There is also a helpline service, which gives
farmers access to experts on farming and
veterinary medicine.
National Farmers NAFIS (the National Farmers Information Farmers Kenya Active
Information Service Service) is a voice service that offers
(NAFIS) agricultural extension information which
farmers can access through mobile phones.
NAFIS is updated through the Web , and
the IVR is created automatically through a
Text-to-Speech engine in both Kiswahili
and Kenyan English.
Avaaj Otalo (Voikiosk) Avaaj Otalo is a voice-based community Farmers India Active
forum that connects farmers in Gujarat,
India to relevant and timely agricultural
information over the phone. Farmers call up
a phone number, and then navigate through
audio prompted menus to ask questions,
listen to answers to similar questions, and
listen to archives of a popular radio
program for Gujarati farmers. The number
farmers can call is toll-free.
Nutrient Manager The Nutrient Manager decision tool for rice Farmers Philippines plannin
has already been released and used with CD g only
and Web-based applications in the

Page 70
 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
Philippines. To reach more farmers,
especially those without computers, the
Philippines has been selected as the country
to develop and provide, through a
partnership with the public and private
sector, a mobile phone–based IVR
application that sends farmers a text
message with a field-specific fertilizer
guideline based on information they provide
about their rice field. This tool is set to be
released in mid-2010.
Kenya Farmer’s Helpline The service which primarily targets Farmers Kenya Active
(KenCall) individual farmers will also be accessible to
agriculture extension facilities, so as to
complement existing efforts to support and
engage the SHFs with detailed and varied
agricultural information on how to improve
production (growing, harvesting and
rearing), planning (agricultural inputs and
planting), negotiating and selling.
Distance Diagnostics The Distance Diagnostics through Digital Farmers, Honduras, Active
through Digital Imaging Imaging system allows textural information livestock Mexico, Belize,
(DDDI) and descriptive images to be submitted workers, field Costa Rica, El
directly from Extension offices, for rapid workers Salvador,
diagnosis by resource professionals. The Guatemala,
system utilizes conventional software and Honduras,
hardware which has proven to be effective Nicaragua,
and reliable. Panama,
Dominican
Republic
1920 (Govi Sahana The Sri Lankan Ministry of Agriculture’s Farmers Sri Lanka Active
Sarana) agricultural advisory services have been
expanded with the creation of a hot line,
1920, which can be used to obtain
information from the Advisory Council.
Callers can ask advisors questions from any
phone, the first three minutes of the call are
free. The service helps farmers in solving
their various problems such as agriculture
related technical matters, inputs and
marketing problems.
Farmers’ Text Center An SMS based service for answering Farmers Philippines Active
(FTC) agriculture related queries.

eExtension Service The Philippine eExtension Service is an Farmers Philippines Active

addition to Techno Gabay, a national
extension system that has the goal of
providing farmers with access to best
practices and latest science and technology
to improve agricultural methods and
increase agricultural productivity.
Información Mensajeria Información Mensajeria Móvil is a series of Farmers Colombia Active
Móvil text message-based subscription services.
Subscribers can choose services such as
training, best practices, advisory and
agriculture news, science and technology,
fishing and aquaculture, rural opportunities
and credit instruments.
Agriculture, Nano Ganesh Nano Ganesh is a GSM Mobile based Farmers India In pilot
Animal remote control system exclusively for the
husbandry, use with water pump sets in agriculture
Fisheries & areas. The need of Nano Ganesh arose from
Forestry the routine problems faced by the farmers in
 Innovation operating the pumps. These problems
include fluctuations in power supply,

Page 71
 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
difficult terrain, fear of animals on the way
to pumps, hazardous pump locations along
rivers or water storage beds, shock hazards
and rains.
Agriculture, EpiCollect – A We provide a generic framework, consisting Field workers None yet Active
Animal PLATFORM FOR of mobile phone software, EpiCollect, and a
husbandry, CREATING APPS, NOT Web application. Data collected by multiple
Fisheries & AN APP ITSELF field workers can be submitted by phone,
Forestry together with GPS data, to a common Web
 Research database and can be displayed and
analyzed, along with previously collected
data, using Google Maps (or Google Earth).
Similarly, data from the Web database can
be requested and displayed on the mobile
phone, again using Google Maps.
   

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

Resource WaterReporter The solution uses open source software, Field workers, South Africa In pilot
Management Web-based GIS and relatively simple labs, rural people
software on mobile phones, allowing water- in areas lacking
 Water
quality test data from field kits to be sent in potable water
and centrally monitored and analyzed.
Grundfos Lifelink A Lifelink system is a single-point water People getting Kenya Active
supply with a submersible borehole pump water from a
that is powered by energy from solar panels. community
Water is pumped to an elevated storage tank, pump
whereupon it is led by gravity to a tap unit in
a small house. The tap unit also serves as a
payment facility.
SMSONE SMSONE is basically a very-local newsletter. Villagers India Active
A local youth buys the franchise rights for a
village for $20 to be the local reporter, then
signs up 1,000 names. The info is entered in a
database and the subscribers get a text
introducing the kid as their village’s reporter.
The subscribers don’t pay anything.
SMSONE’s service can give farmers instant
updates about crop pricing or news of a seed
or fertilizer delivery a town away. SMSONE
subscribers get a text when the pipes are
about to be turned on at local water taps.
Resource n/a
Management
 Land
Resource Greenpeace India – The SMS lead generation campaign is a filter Campaigners, India No longer
Management SMS Lead mechanism designed to source ‘warm NGOs active
Generation prospects’. An SMS text message was sent to
 Environment
56,137 people, all qualified as potential warm
& Climate
prospects with an interest in environmental
issues.
   

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

Labor, Migration Mobenzi Mobenzi is a new software service designed Job seekers South Africa In pilot
and Human to create work in impoverished
Development communities in South Africa. Even among
the unemployed, mobile phones are
 Employment common, and Mobenzi pays them to
perform simple tasks, via SMS on their
phones.
Jana Jana is a service that enables mobile phone Job seekers Africa Active
subscribers to earn money and accumulate
savings by completing simple micro-tasks
for large corporate clients.
Babajob Babajob.com is a job Website and mobile Job seekers India Active
portal dedicated to connecting informal
sector workers – cooks, maids, drivers,
guards, etc.- and employers to India and
eventually worldwide.
KerjaLokal KerjaLokal is a blue collar job search Job seekers Indonesia Active
(Grameen) – NOT service that can be accessed via the mobile
TARGETED AT phone. The KerjaLokal.com microsite can
RURAL be accessed from a mobile device through a
WAP browser.
Mobile for Good M4G delivers vital health, employment and Job seekers Kenya, Active
(M4G) – NOT community content via SMS on mobile Cameroon,
TARGETED AT phones in order to inform and empower Tanzania,
RURAL disadvantaged individuals and help bridge Uganda,
the digital divide, the widening technology Nigeria, Nepal
gulf which exists between rich and poor
countries.
Kazi560 Subscription service to receive SMS alerts Job seekers Kenya Active
of new jobs available in Kazi560’s
database.
Freedom Fone – A Freedom Fone is an information and Job seekers Zimbabwe Active
PLATFORM, NOT communication tool, which marries the
AN APP IN ITSELF mobile phone with Interactive Voice
Response (IVR), for citizen benefit. It
provides information activists, service
organizations and NGO’s with widely
usable telephony applications, to deliver
vital information to communities who need
it most.
Labor, Migration BridgeIT and BridgeIT is a program that uses mobile Teachers, Philippines, Active
and Human Text2Teach phones to bring educational videos to rural students Tanzania
Development classrooms in Tanzania. Text2Teach is an
educational program which aims to enable
 Education, teachers and students to access over 900
learning & multimedia educational materials like
training video, pictures, text or audio files via Short
Message Service (SMS) in the Philippines
and was initiated by BridgeIT.
Project MIND The objectives of this project are to test the Teachers, Mongolia, Active
feasibility and acceptability of using short students Philippines
COMPLETED message system (SMS) technologies for
PROJECT delivering nonformal distance learning
(DL) to different socio-economic, cultural
and gender groups; and to determine the
motivation of users for distance learning
purposes.
MILLEE With a donation of 450 cellphones from Teachers, India Active
Nokia, they deployed MILLEE games with students
400 rural children in 20 villages in India.
They compared their learning gains against
400 children in another 20 villages. They
deployed MILLEE games with another
group of children from the urban slums.

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Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
The MILLEE games target an entire
academic year of the local, official English
curriculum.
Question Box / Open Question Box is Open Mind’s initiative that Rural people India, Uganda Active
Question helps people find answers to everyday
questions like health, agriculture, business,
education and entertainment. It provides
easy access to information in hard-to-reach
areas and breaks through technology,
language and literacy barriers. We do this
through hotlines connected to live operators
or SMS. Open Question is a simple
software to start your own Question Box
project.
Project ABC The purpose of the pilot program is to use Students, low- Niger In pilot
information technology (mobile phones) as literacy people
a complement to traditional literacy
training, providing households with the
opportunity to practice their literacy skills
via SMS.
Multimedia Word Based on an analysis of 25 traditional Students China Active
and Drumming Chinese games currently played by children
Strokes games – in China, we present the design and
NOT TARGETED implementation of two culturally inspired
AT RURAL mobile group learning games, Multimedia
PEOPLE Word and Drumming Strokes. These two
mobile games are designed to match
Chinese children’s understanding of
everyday games.
BBC Janala – NOT BBC Janala (‘Window’), launched in Bangladeshi- Bangladesh Active
TARGETED AT November 2009 is a unique multi-platform speakers
RURAL PEOPLE (including mobile, internet and TV) project
that harnesses multimedia technology to
provide affordable education to potentially
millions of people in the Bangladeshi-
speaking community. By dialing 3000 users
can access hundreds of English language
audio lessons and quizzes.
M4Lit – NOT The m4Lit project set out to explore the Students South Africa Active
TARGETED AT viability of using mobile phones to support
RURAL PEOPLE reading and writing by youth in South
Africa. In the pilot phase of the project a
mobile novel (m-novel) was written and
published in September 2009 on a mobisite
and on MXit.
M4Girls The M4girls project is a partnership Teachers, South Africa No longer
between Nokia, Mindset Network, and the students active
Department of Education (North West
Province/South Africa) to test the provision
of educational content on a mobile phone
platform to girl learners.
Voices of Africa The training program combines several face Trainee reporters Ghana, Active
Mobile Reporting – to face workshops with practical Cameroon,
A PLATFORM, assignments for an optimum learning Kenya,
NOT AN APP experience. During the initial workshop Tanzania, South
ITSELF trainees are introduced to the basics of Africa
mobile reporting. When they are familiar
with the mobile phone, trainees go back to
their communities and practice their newly
acquired skills by making short video
reports about diverse topics in their
communities. They publish each report on
the training Website and receive individual
feedback by email or Skype from our
professional coaches.

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
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ICT Bites The project was set up to deal with the Teachers Tanzania In pilot
shortage of qualified teachers. There is a
special focus in the project on in-service
education of Licensed Teachers, teachers
with only a few weeks of formal teacher
education. The project will use available
infrastructure and media to Develop models
for communication and distribution of
learning material for different technical
environments (broadband, VSAT, mobile
phones, CD/DVD, memory cards etc).
Dr Math Dr Math provides tutors to help with Students South Africa Active
mathematics homework. Pupils use Mxit on
their mobile phones. Tutors are from
University of Pretoria. The service runs
from 14:00 – 22:00 Sunday – Thursday.
Tutoring is mostly in English, but some in
Afrikaans.
Labor, Migration Jokko Initiative Tostan is adding a new component to its Rural youth, Senegal Active
and Human community empowerment program rural women
Development (currently reaching over 800 communities
in eight African countries), to teach the
 Rural Youth practical uses of standard cell phone
capabilities and SMS texting. Mobile
phones will increasingly serve as the
platform for services provided by
governments, health clinics, schools, and
banks. The Jokko Initiative will provide a
new generation of girls with access to the
valuable tools of communication
technology, and training in its applications
for community engagement and positive
social change.
Labor, Migration n/a
and Human
Development
 Rural Women
opportunities
Labor, Migration Trade at Hand Trade at Hand is an ITC service which Farmers, Burkina Faso, Active
and Human objective is to make innovative use of exporters, food Mali,
Development mobile phones by business exporters from security Mozambique,
developing economies. There are four institutions, Senegal, Liberia
 SMEs and micro solutions: Market Prices, consists in buyers
businesses / sending, via SMS, product prices on
private sector international markets; Market Alerts is a
development Web-to-SMS tool that enables Business
Support Organizations to transmit business
opportunities, contacts and market news to
targeted business people; mCollect allows
national market price collecting and food
security institutions to use the SMS channel
to gather price information from their
networks of rural market price collectors;
Mobile Marketplace, offers a virtual
marketplace to small-scale producers who
have access to a mobile phone, enabling
them to advertise their products to big
buyers.
TiendatekWeb – The first product is a point-of-sale software Micro-retailers Latin America Active
NOT TARGETED application that allows micro-retailers to
AT RURAL record all store expenses and revenues
directly on a mobile phone; the camera
even serves as a bar code reader which
allows them to record sales and inventory at
the product level. All applications run on
smart phones that have touch-screens and
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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
synchronize wirelessly with Web servers.
Labor, Migration n/a
and Human
Development
 Migration
Labor, Migration JavaRosa – A JavaRosa is an open-source platform for All people Uganda, various Active
and Human PLATFORM, NOT data collection on mobile devices. It is a
Development AN APPLICATION project of Open Rosa, a member of the
IN ITSELF – NOT Open Mobile Consortium. JavaRosa has
 Miscellaneous TARGETED AT been designed for a wide and ever
RURAL increasing variety of applications including
taking survey data, following disease
management, guiding health workers
through treatment protocols at point of care,
and collection of medical records.
FrontlineSMS – NOT FrontlineSMS is award-winning free, open All people Over 50 Active
TARGETED AT source software that turns a laptop and a countries
RURAL mobile phone into a central
communications hub. Once installed, the
program enables users to send and receive
text messages with groups of people
through mobile phones. What you
communicate is up to you, making
FrontlineSMS useful in many different
ways.
CellBazaar – NOT CellBazaar leverages the simple, Buyers and Bangladesh Active
TARGETED AT widespread power of SMS to bring the sellers
RURAL market to your phone. By sending simple
text messages to 3838, you can post items
for sale, look for items to buy, and obtain
current market prices of products or
services. Alternatively, WAP provides an
even faster experience as you browse a
simple graphic menu to access the entire
marketplace.
GeoChat – A GeoChat is a flexible open source group Teams Various Active
PLATFORM, NOT communications technology that lets team
AN APP ITSELF members interact to maintain shared
geospatial awareness of who is doing what
where -- over any device, on any platform,
over any network. GeoChat allows teams to
stay in touch one another in a variety of
ways: over SMS, over email, and on the
surface of a map in a Web browser.
GeoChat allows networks of organizations
and individuals to form cross-
organizational virtual teams on the fly,
linking field to headquarters -- keeping
everyone on your team connected, in sync,
and aware of who is doing what, and where.

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Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

Mesh4X – A Mesh4x allows organizations to create Organizations Various Active

PLATFORM, NOT seamless cross-organizational information
AN APP ITSELF sharing between different databases,
desktop applications, Websites, and
devices. It allows you to create or join a
shared data mesh that links together
disparate software and servers and
synchronizes data between them
automatically. You choose the data you
wish to share and others do the same,
enabling dispersed groups within or across
organizations to see and synchronize data.
Using Mesh4X, changes to data in any one
location in the mesh are automatically
synchronized to every other location. For
cases where no Internet access is available
at all, there is no longer any need for the
slow transport of files physically between
locations. Mesh4X gives you the option to
synchronize all data via a series of SMS
text messages.

Mobilisr – A Mobilisr is an open source enterprise class NGOs South Africa In pilot
PLATFORM, NOT mobile messaging platform for NGOs
AN APP ITSELF around the world. The Praekelt Foundation
and Cell Life, South-African based
organization, are collaboratively developing
an open source enterprise-level messaging
platform.
Open Data Kit – A Open Data Kit (ODK) is an open source Various Sub-Saharan Active
PLATFORM, NOT mobile data collection system designed so Africa
AN APP ITSELF that components can reconfigured as
needed. The system harnesses rapidly
evolving functionality on mobiles and on
the internet into an easy to use package.
The mobile client, ODK Collect, is built on
the Android platform and can collect a
variety of data types: text, location, photos,
video, audio, and barcodes. ODK
Aggregate is a Web server built on
Google’s App Engine infrastructure. It
provides a free and scalable repository
where collected data can be stored,
exported into a number of formats or
visualized on a Google Map. Instead of
closed solutions with limited lifetimes,
ODK builds on open technologies and open
standards that guarantee interoperability
and enable future capabilities. By using the
XForms standard, ODK can share complex
forms and data with systems such as
OpenMRS, EpiSurveyor, and the OMC’s
JavaRosa.
Rapid Android – A Rapid Android is a unique platform where, Anyone entering Various Active
PLATFORM, NOT for the first time ever, a phone can now be data in the field (UNICEF)
AN APP ITSELF used not only as a data entry tool but a data
aggregation platform. Rapid Android
allows users to use the Android phone as a
mini-server, in addition to using it as an

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Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
SMS client, allowing users in the field to
enter data, to create surveys, and rapidly
analyze data in the field. Rapid Android is a
complete two-way SMS solutions that
unlike other tools on the market, allows for
analysis and processing on the actual
phone.
RapidSMS – A RapidSMS is a platform created from the Anyone entering Various Active
PLATFORM, NOT same underlying pieces of computer code. data in the field (UNICEF)
AN APP ITSELF Each one was crafted to solve a specific
problem of a field office. The underlying
code-base is open-source, so anyone can
use it and build upon the platform.
RapidSMS is designed to be customized for
the varied needs and constraints of
UNICEF and the developing world. Each
RapidSMS product is an SMS-based tool
that enables mobile data collection and
messaging.
Mobile Researcher – Mobile Researcher is a SaaS platform Field researchers Multiple Active
A PLATFORM, which transforms the ubiquitous mobile
NOT AN APP phone into a cutting-edge research tool.
ITSELF Leverage Web and mobile technologies to
design and deploy surveys to fieldworkers
in minutes, monitor, manage and
communicate with your team and analyze
responses in real-time. Using Mobile
Researcher, the process of data collection,
capture, storage and analysis takes place
instantly with data available immediately
from anywhere in the world. Manage
surveys, people and data from your Web-
based console.
InSTEDD GeoChat – InSTEDD GeoChat is a unified mobile Groups Cambodia, Active
A PLATFORM, communications service designed Thailand
NOT AN APP specifically to enable self-organizing group
ITSELF communications in the developing world.
The service lets mobile phone users
broadcast location-based alerts, report on
their situation, and coordinate around
events as they unfold, linking field,
headquarters, and the local community in a
real-time, interactive conversation
visualized on the surface of a map. Once
you create a GeoChat group, you may use it
as the text equivalent of a push-to-talk
radio: send the group a message on the Web
, by email, or by SMS, and the rest of the
group receives it.

Text to Change – A With the Text to Change concept we offer Various Uganda, Active
PLATFORM, NOT an interactive Mobile SMS Quiz with Cameroon,
AN APP ITSELF knowledge questions linked with a Tanzania,
rewarding system (incentive). By means of Namibia,
this edutainment and this interactive way of Madagascar
communicating, we tend to reach out to
millions of people in Africa and around the
world in order to spread the message of our
partners and make it a subject of discussion.
The SMS Quiz is designed to raise and help
resolve key issues around local
development programs.
Sembuse and MXit – Sembuse allows users, for 15% of the cost Various East Africa, Active
A PLATFORM, of a normal 160 character SMS message in South Africa
NOT AN APP Kenya, to send one with 1000 characters in
ITSELF it. Sembuse is a mobile social network. It’s

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product
a way for East Africans to connect with
each other via short messaging, cheaper
than normal SMS messages.
MXit is a free instant messaging software
application developed by MXit Lifestyle in
South Africa that runs on GPRS/3G mobile
phones and on PCs. It allows the user to
send and receive one-on-one text and
multimedia messages to and from other
users, as well as in general chat rooms.
   

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

Governance / eSMS – NOT eSMS is an exclusive SMS Gateway Citizens India Active
Political TARGETED AT established by the Kerala State IT Mission
RURAL for use by various government departments
 E-Government
for providing departmental services over
and
mobile phones.
administration
relevant to rural 1919 / GovSMS – Now in Sri Lanka by dialing 1919 using Citizens Sri Lanka Active
development NOT TARGETED any phone you have the access to all the
AT RURAL services offered by the government. The
beauty of that is service is available in
Sinhala Tamil and English. This makes
accessing the government services a much
better experience and makes the life really
easy when it comes to deal with
government agencies or departments.
Mamamayan Muna – TXT CSC is a support mechanism of the Citizens Philippines Active
TXT CSC Mamamayan Muna flagship program of the
Civil Service Commission (CSC) under the
Public Assistance and Information Office
(PAIO). It seeks to provide improvement on
government frontline services, act on
requests, recommendations, complaints and
other concerns of the citizen in an upfront,
courteous, and efficient manner.
Governance /
Political
 Awareness
raising
Governance / Disaster and The DEWN is an innovation based on Citizens, first Sri Lanka Active
Political Emergency Warning widely available mobile communications responders
Network (DEWN) – technologies such as short messages (SMS)
 Other m-
NOT TARGETED and cell broadcast (CB), aimed at rendering
government
AT RURAL a cost effective and reliable mass alert
services
system. The network connects mobile
subscribers, police stations, identified
religious/social community centers and
even the general public to a national
emergency alarming center.
Ushahidi The Ushahidi Platform was built for Citizens, NGO, Kenya, India, Active
information collection, visualization and media, election Mexico,
interactive mapping. Ushahidi, which monitors Lebanon,
means testimony in Swahili, is a Website Afghanistan,
that was initially developed to map reports DR Congo,
of violence in Kenya after the post-election Zambia,
fallout at the beginning of 2008. The Philippines
volunteer team behind Ushahidi rapidly
developed a tool for Kenyans to use SMS,
email, or the Web to report and map
incidents of violence.
SMS e-Service The e-Service is a communication and Citizens Kenya Active
information sharing forum between citizens,
Ministry of State and Registration of
Persons, Public Sector Reform and
Performance Contracting (PSR&PC) and
the Directorate of e-Government. The
project will enable citizens to access
government services through mobile phones
and to query the manner services are
delivered and to obtain real time feedback
regarding requirements, costs and status of
the most commonly demanded public
services.
   

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

Rural Finance, Ekgaon CAM, and, CAM is a mobile information services Microfinance India In pilot
Infrastructure & ICT Self-Help MIS framework for rural areas in the developing institutions
world. CAM is a three-tier document-based
 Mobile Money,
architecture for providing remote rural
m-banking and
information services for SHGs in
micro-finance
Microfinance. The CAM framework consists
related services
of the CAMBrowser, a single mobile phone
application, CAMForm paper forms,
equipped with embedded processing
instructions and the CAMServer, an on-line
service that links CAM with Web-based
services.
Zero (ZMF) The ZERO platform converts new generation Rural people India Active
low cost NFC mobiles with large storage
capacities as a secure, self-sufficient bank
branch, with biometrics based customer ID,
for customer enrolment for no-frills accounts
and all types of transactions in the village
with the local Customer Service Point
operator acting as a Teller. mZERO (mobile
version of ZERO) is available as a self-
service payment option for customers on the
mobile phone SIM to enable both over-the-
counter and remote payments.
MAP – NOT Once an individual has been through the All people Uganda Active
TARGETED AT simple biometric identification process – via
RURAL one of our Data Capture Stations based in
bank branches, or one of our mobile stations
available in rural areas – they are issued a
smartcard and PIN tied to a bank account.
Individuals can access a wide range of
services, using this card in conjunction with
point-of-sale terminals (deployed to agent
networks, petrol stations, grocery stores,
Savings and Credit Co-operatives, bank
locations and high traffic retail locations),
ATMs at bank branches, mobile phones or
via the internet.
Rural Finance, Kilimo Salama Kilimo Salama (Safe Agriculture) is an Farmers Kenya Active
Infrastructure & ICT insurance designed for Kenyan farmers so
they may insure their farm inputs against
 Agricultural
drought and excess rain. The project, which
insurance
is a partnership between Syngenta
services
Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, UAP
Insurance, and telecoms operator Safaricom,
will offer farmers who plant on as little as
one acre insurance policies to shield them
from significant financial losses when
drought or excess rain are expected to wreak
havoc on their harvests.
Rural Finance, Starbus (*bus) The system is a proof-of-concept engineered Bus users Kyrgyzstan In pilot
Infrastructure & ICT to create a bottom-up, transportation
information infrastructure using only GPS
 Transport
and SMS. The system, *bus, involved the
development of a hardware device (a *box)
containing a GSM modem and a GPS unit,
that can be installed on a vehicle and used to
track its location. The *box communicates
via SMS with a server connected to a basic
GSM phone. The server runs route a
prediction algorithm and users can send SMS
messages to the server to find when a bus
will arrive at their location.
Rural Finance, Gaon Ki Awaaz Gaon Ki Awaaz, which means Village Voice Villagers India In pilot
Infrastructure & ICT in the Avhadi language, sends out twice-daily
news calls to subscribers directly over their

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 Subsector / Name of Service/ Description/Summary Target Users Country Status
Segment Product

 Broadcasting & mobile phones. Launched in December 2009,

program related the project recently expanded to 250
subscribers spread over 20 villages.
4400 Initiative – UNICEF Nepal has a Website with a special Youth Nepal Active
NOT TARGETED meta-site just for young people called the
AT RURAL Voices of Youth. Now, every week on a
popular youth-oriented radio program, the
radio team frames a topic or a question and
invites the listeners to respond via a free text
message to an established short code, 4400.
The responses are then posted on a forum on
the UNICEF Voices of Youth (VOY) meta-
site, or the Freedom Express debate platform.
CGNet Swara – CGNet Swara is a new audio-based citizen Citizens India Active
NOT TARGETED journalism service in Chhattisgarh, India.
AT RURAL Citizen journalists can call a phone number
to record news, and listeners can call in to
hear news recorded by citizens around them
CGNet Swara moderators use a Google SMS
channel (a free SMS group service in India)
to send out an SMS after a news report is
published. The SMS includes the number
recipients can call to hear this report..
Managing News – Managing News originated as a news Citizens Afghanistan Active
A PLATFORM, aggregation and republishing platform
NOT AN APP heavily integrated with RSS/Atom. Users can
ITSELF track a diverse set of RSS/Atom feeds,
visualize them, and republish selected reports
on a platform that allows for mapping and
pluggable visualizations. Managing News
has subsequently added SMS functionality to
the system. The system is based on Drupal,
and integrates several open source projects
including OpenLayers, SimplePie, and many
Drupal plug-ins.
Rural Finance,
Infrastructure & ICT
 Printed media
Rural Finance, SocialTxt SocialTxt is a mobile messaging platform All people South Africa Active
Infrastructure & ICT that uses the available advertising space on
‘please call me’ (PCM) messages, to
 Miscellaneous
communicate selected information to a
specific target audience. Through use of the
PCM advertising space, SocialTxt’s objective
is to give nonprofit organizations the ability
to reach a potential 900,000 individuals in
South Africa per day with essential
information aligned toward the Millennium
Development Goals.
 

Page 83
Annex D: Mobile Applications Ecosystem for Agricultural and
Rural Development
Players Assets & Capabilities Roles Incentives & Business Limitations , Constraints
Model & Threats
Technology & ICT service providers

Mobile network  Mobile infrastructure  Provide infrastructure  Acquire customers  Regulatory limitations
operators  Extensive retail outlets / and communications  Manage churn on providing financial
agent networks service  Increase ARPUs services, e.g. issuing e-
 Large customer bases that  Host applications,  Capture additional revenue
money, on-phone
include low-income databases and/or take advertising, etc.
opportunities
segments app development on  Shareholder pressure for
 Meet service obligations
 Strong branding board faster, higher returns
and CSR goals
 Customer trust  Provide incentives to app  Strategic focus that may
providers & hosts in the not include some rural
 Customer service
form of bulk data applications
structures
discounts, etc.
 Ability to make good
margins on low ARPUs
Mobile Platform  Technology and expertise  Provide the back-office,  Provide an efficient,  Most platform providers
& OS providers to enable the simplified underlying systems for effective way to create and have limited scale/scope
creation and distribution of creating and/or distribute useful  Strategic focus more
applications distributing applications applications to encourage often focused on urban
 A successful platform  Provide payment providers and mobile and developed markets
would realize economies mechanism (m-money or network operators to  Competition from other
of scale that could accrue operator billing) embrace the platform platform providers
to app providers
Handset  Brand recognition  Provide the software  Increased app availability  Shareholder pressure for
suppliers – Basic  Extensive distribution capabilities to enable a could improve handset faster, higher returns
2G networks wide range of apps sales  Strategic focus that may
 Large customer bases  Provide the hardware  Meet CSR goals not include rural
 Customer service capabilities to make apps  Increased penetration applications
structures easy to use among rural, lower income  Smartphones
users
Smartphone  Increased functionality  Provide the software  Customer loyalty and lock-  Ecosystem providers
suppliers – 3G  Rapidly expanding user capabilities to enable a in (such as Google &
Mobile, Tablets, base wide range of apps Apple)
Netbooks  Provide the hardware  Commodification
capabilities to make apps
easy to use
Software/  Creativity/Innovation,  Develop applications  Earn revenue from selling  Small-scale
Application ideas  In developing countries, the application  Require platforms or
Providers  Technical skills to develop need to seek partnerships  Meet a community need / partnerships to distribute
applications with platform providers, development objective applications
 Knowledge of a specific handset vendors, mobile
sector or part of society network operators etc.
where need exists
Content Providers

Civil Society  Local contacts and  Undertake research,  Enhance social and  Philanthropy-based, not-
(Local knowledge in low-income especially on lower economic impacts of their for-profit funding
Community markets income segments activities models limit scale
based  Credibility and trust  Engage in operational  Drive development in  Cultures and business
Organizations)  Relevant operations partnerships with mobile general, in line with processes may not lend
app providers organizational mission themselves to partnering
 Mobile app awareness & with business
education
Civil Society /  Credibility and trust  Undertake research,  Enhance social and  Philanthropy-based, not-
NGOs, (Int’l)  Financial resources or especially on lower economic impacts of their for-profit funding
relationships income segments activities models limit scale
 Expertise from  Build agents & small  Drive development in  Cultures and business
international experiences retailers’ capacity general, in line with processes may not easily

Page 84
Players Assets & Capabilities Roles Incentives & Business Limitations , Constraints
Model & Threats
 Engage in operational organizational mission lend themselves to
partnerships with mobile partnership with
app providers business
 Mobile app awareness
and education
ARD  Reach into rural areas  Making their services/  More efficient, effective  Lack of technical
Government  Information about the information available provision of government knowledge to develop
Departments people / economies in rural through m-apps services applications
areas  Promotion/ marketing  Rural development
 Financial, technical  Financing through PPPs
resources of the
government
Extension  Knowledge  Provide training, advice  Improve training,  Lack of technical
workers  Presence in rural areas via mobile apps knowledge, skills of rural knowledge about mobile
 Support rural users to people or ICT apps
learn to use the apps
Educators &  Knowledge  Provide educational tools  Improve educational  Lack of technical
trainers  Presence in rural areas via mobile apps outcomes knowledge about mobile
 Trust  Support app or ICT apps
development through
capacity building
Employment  Contact with a network of  Provide job seekers and  Improve service to both job  Lack of technical
agencies employers and job seekers employers with relevant seekers and employers knowledge about mobile
contacts & opportunities
via m-apps
Employers  Existing periodic payroll  Offer direct deposit of  Reduce cost of payroll  Cultural resistance
distribution to employees wages into mobile processing, risk of cash
money accounts handling
 Provide information and  Offer greater employee
benefit dissemination convenience
through mobile apps
Media -  Branding  Provide content for  Increase audience  Lack of technical
Broadcasting  Reach applications  Increase revenues knowledge
 Network infrastructure  CSR  Lack of rural knowledge
Media - Print  Branding  Provide content for  Increase audience  Lack of technical
 Reach applications  Increase revenues knowledge
 Distribution network  CSR  Lack of rural knowledge
 High cost
Financial service providers to users

M-Money  Existing infrastructure  Provide payment engine  Acquire customers &/or  Existing financial
services / which enhances and for apps with transaction increase volumes services, e.g. credit
engines (mobile increases usefulness of component cards, PayPal
network transaction apps  NFC payments
operator or bank
based, or
independent)
Credit card or  Existing infrastructure  Provide payment  Make new inroads, acquire  Mobile money, NFC
payment which could enhance & facilities for some customers payments via mobile
network increase usefulness of customers in apps with phone
operators some transaction apps transaction component
Banks / MFIs  Banking infrastructure  Offer banking services  Gain access to new clients  Narrow customer base
 Ability to facilitate forex via mobile  Reduce cost of delivering  Lack of experience with,
clearing & settlement  Hold float or accounts in financial services and in some cases
 Regulatory compliance customers’ names  Establish presence in new interest in, low-income
expertise  Handle cross-border customer segments and customers
 Retail outlet networks transactions, manage new areas  Stringent regulatory
 MFIs have service foreign exchange risk  Meet service obligations requirements with
presence among low-  Ensure compliance with and CSR goals significant compliance
income segments financial sector  Capture add’l revenue burdens
 MFIs conduct regular regulation  Safer & lower-cost  Back office systems
communication with low-  Introduce low-income methods of disbursement may not be linked with
income clients segments to mobile and collection mobile money platforms

Page 85
Players Assets & Capabilities Roles Incentives & Business Limitations , Constraints
Model & Threats
 MFIs have knowledge of money  Improve business  Cultural resistance
low-income clients’ habits  Educate end users efficiencies
and needs
Insurance  Infrastructure  Offer insurance services  Reduce cost of delivering  Narrow customer base
companies  Regulatory compliance via mobile financial services  Lack of experience with,
expertise  Ensure compliance with  Establish presence in new and in some cases
 Provide a potentially financial/insurance customer segments and interest in, low-income
valuable service that is sector regulation new geographic areas customers
under-utilized in  Introduce low-income  Capture additional revenue  Lack of data about low-
rural/agricultural regions segments to mobile  Safer and lower-cost income customers
of developing nations insurance methods of disbursement  Cultural resistance
 Educate end-users and collection
 Improve business
efficiencies
Financial  Physical points of presence  Perform cash-in and  Earn commissions on  Liquidity shortfalls
Service Agents  Customer trust cash-out functions transactions  Basic business skills
(E.g., mobile  Knowledge of customer  Identify potential new  Increase traffic and sales gaps
money agents) usage habits and needs m-apps potential (for agents who  Limited ability to
are retailers) partner with large
corporations
Financiers

IFIs & Donors  Financial resources  Provide financing  Support development  Lack of local
 Best practices expertise  Provide business objectives knowledge, legal
development assistance  Creation of profitable systems, etc.
 Provide technical businesses  Lack of integration with
assistance business/ commercial
communities
Venture Capital  Private capital  Flexible, informal or  New opportunities for  Usually want high
providers formal financing for new investment Return on Investment
businesses  Exclusivity period for  High levels of
investment competition remove
incentive to invest
Commercial  Access to capital and large  Provide loans to  Expand customer base  High cost infrastructure
Banks balance sheets businesses  Low risk model, only
 Advise on exit strategy prepared to invest in
for investors (such as businesses at Stage 2
VCs) level
USFs & ICT  Capital assets which can  Provide smart subsidies  Promotes Universal Access  Staff capacity may be
Development be used to finance ICT to private sector players and expands the USF’s role limited
Agencies projects with to develop or expand in ICT growth and
RD/Universal Access rural m-apps development
focus
Government  Funds to support  Support pilot projects /  Expand agri services  Few funds
ARD government development test concepts  Inflexible
Departments objectives
Users

End users  Relevant needs  Use mobile apps to  Reduce risk of carrying  Lack of awareness
(farmers, improve their lives cash  Limited mobile literacy
householders,  Increased access and  Cultural and
youth women) affordability of payment, psychological resistance
remittance, & other
financial services
 Convenience of remote
payment, remittance, and
other services
Cooperatives  Local contacts and  Build the capacity of  Increase sales of co-op  Lack of technical
knowledge in low-income agents and small retailers members capacity to develop
markets  Engage in operational  Enhance social and applications
 Credibility and trust partnerships with mobile economic impacts of their  Little incentive to
 Relevant operations app providers activities expand to nonmembers
 Co-ops conduct regular  Mobile app awareness  Drive development in or small farmers

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Players Assets & Capabilities Roles Incentives & Business Limitations , Constraints
Model & Threats
communication with low- and education general, in line with
income clients organizational mission
 Co-ops have knowledge of
low-income clients’ habits
and needs
Rural Produce  Warehouses  Aggregation points and  Lower cost of supply  May be short of funding
Buyers/ Food  Transfer points to end provide economies of  Increase quality of supply (though Kenya & Sri
Processing buyer scale by supporting apps that Lanka example showed
Plants improve farmers’ position buyer willing to invest
in improved quality and
efficiency)

Product  Financial resources to  Participants  Broaden customer reach  Strategic focus that may
companies with spend on marketing &  Reduce customer not include using RD
interest in the research acquisition costs oriented apps
rural market
(e.g., FMCG)
Marketing  Knowledge of market  Create awareness,  Generate income through  Size, reach
organizations characteristics and needs education sales  In some cases have
 Reach  Targeting  Increase the limited technical
 Ability to create awareness  Sales outlet for rural use/membership of a given capabilities
of applications producers organization’s services  May require complex,
multi-partner structure
to create an application
Retailers /  Physical points of presence  Accept mobile payments  Reduce costs  Customer demand (or
traders  Use mobile payments in lack thereof)
B2B transactions,  Business partner
payment of wages willingness to transact
 Build customer trust by mobile
Veterinarians  Ability to help maintain,  Provide advice, expertise  Improved animal health  Lack of knowledge of
improve animal health  Increase income mobile technology

Others

ICT & Banking  Authority to impose  Provide enabling  Financial stability  Lack of experience with
Regulators regulation and monitor and environment for m-apps  Growing sector convergence of financial
enforce compliance  Protect stability of and telecom regulatory
financial system regimes
 Encourage and protect  Lack of financial and
behavior change technical capacity
Government  Enabling policy  Reduce cost of doing  Promote financial inclusion  Limited funds
ICT & allied environment business  National socio-economic
Policy Makers  Support entrepreneurial development
skills development
through education &
policy

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Annex E: Summary of Lessons by Subsector
Mobile Country Lessons
Applications Development Impact Ecosystem (players, Business Model
platform, hyper-local (objectives, revenue,
content/service, etc) sustainability, scalability,
financing)
1. Agriculture, Animal husbandry, Fisheries & Forestry
Manobi Senegal,  Better access to market  Local content on market  Affordability can limit the
Ghana, information leads to increased prices created by local staff in entry of smallholder farmers,
KACE, Kenya income. thus planned multi-level
market resource centers
DrumNet,  Linking suppliers and buyers services are effective (market
b2bpricenow.c Philippines (MRCs) is responsible for
directly, cutting out the
om KACE’s value creation as info at no cost, leading to
middlemen, removing
GoogleTrader Uganda information asymmetry leads well as supporting their virtual value added market linkage
to increased income. market using broadcast radio assistance at a price can
and linkages between buyer & migrate beneficial
seller participation).
 Platforms, such as Ovi Life
Tools (OLT), could ensure
wider availability of
applications and therefore
scalability.
 Partnerships with mobile
network operators are vital for
leveraging their networks and
services, reaching users, cost
management, etc.
DrumNet Kenya  As above  Pilot integrated major buyers,  But trying to do everything
buyer-producer contracts, (i.e., incorporate all players in
bank, farm produce pick-up & a value chain) at once can
transportation, mobile lead to failure, even of a well-
recording & accounting, and conceived and potentially
value chain management. impactful application. Organic
step-by-step growth is more
feasible (see Virtual City
below).
 Attempting to transit from
NGO developed applications
with donor support to a private
sector technology owner in
one step seems challenging.
Virtual City Kenya  Supply chain automation  This model has relied on one  Applications focused on
improvements (mobile & major player (e.g., national meeting/ automating specific
ICT) in specific market scale buyer) financing an customer needs without
segments lead to reduced application that is deemed including full value chain can
transactional and logistical good for the buyer dominated grow at a rate that matches
costs ecosystem need and capabilities.
 These benefits, as well as  Also improved farmer credit
greater accuracy of farm gate worthiness and can indirectly
measurements impact farmer draw banks to the value chain.
(income), buyer (cost
reduction) & market
productivity for the segment.
Dialog Sri Lanka,  Micro, granular information  A specialized agriculture  Popularity and impact still do
Tradenet, India, Kenya, (market pricing, weather information company can be not guarantee profitable
RML, Chile advisories) results in key to providing trusted scalability without either the
DatAgro increased income. information. benefit of large market size or
 Farmers trust and see value in effective packaging for
specialized hyper-local efficient multi-market

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Mobile Country Lessons
Applications Development Impact Ecosystem (players, Business Model
platform, hyper-local (objectives, revenue,
content/service, etc) sustainability, scalability,
financing)
content from trusted suppliers replication
(e.g. based in local market  Partnerships with farmer
centers or cooperatives) cooperatives to define the
types of information they
need
Manobi Senegal,  Produce traceability yields  Mobile operators provide  Freemium model: Free entry-
Niger & Mali global markets access level services, Added value
 Better supply chain linkages  Market researchers input services for a fee, 3rd party
improve revenues market data into system via services for a higher fee.
 Market knowledge increases mobile device  Financing: 1st (free stage) is
everyone’s income  Financial service providers funded by donors; second
offer financial/payment (added value) stage has fee to
services the farmers, 3rd (3rd party
 Local government provides services) stage is multiple fee
government services model with all participants in
the value chain paying a fee.
b2bpricenow.c Philippines .  Attaching an application to a  It is possible to launch an e-
om successful bank guarantees marketplace economically if
transactions by piggybacking the objectives appeal to
on the bank’s existing several interested
clientele (i.e. guaranteeing stakeholders, such as
transaction flows) and through technology suppliers, agri
the bank’s due diligence on media, bank, which all share
participants, use of the bank’s costs.
existing infrastructure such as  Also, the primary players
account and card facilities were limited to cooperatives,
(thereby lowering the cost of cooperative buyers & buyers,
customer acquisition. thus publicity was easily
 The bank also shouldered the targeted.
cost of promotion, roadshows
 The application started as an
and cooperative training, since
e-commerce service for the
it gained on transaction
cooperatives and major
volume.
farmers. b2bpricenow.com is
expanding the service to
include farmers that are not
account holders with
LandBank. b2bpricenow
strategy to add more
subscribers is premised upon
migrating services to mobile
phones, though the
functionality on mobile
phones is not totally fulfilled
yet.
e-Dairy, 1920, Sri Lanka,  Targeted relevant information,  Government information on  Clear objectives (such as
Farmers Philippines like expert advice, can result productivity and sector issues increasing milk production by
Texting Service in increased production combined with ICT 30 percent) are correlated
with apps that graduate from
implementing resources can
the pilot/ concept stage.
generate practical m-ARD
 Main challenge is formulation
concepts of plan to migrate from
Government led to effective
PPP to leverage private
capacity for efficiency &
growth
Esoko N. Sudan,  Reduced travel and  Platform can be applied to any  Private businesses can be
Burkina Faso, communications costs by application or industry that leveraged to participate and

Page 89
Mobile Country Lessons
Applications Development Impact Ecosystem (players, Business Model
platform, hyper-local (objectives, revenue,
content/service, etc) sustainability, scalability,
financing)
Cote d’Ivoire, offering targeted procurement would benefit from direct subsidize the cost for lower
Ghana, or extension messages to access to a mobile phone income groups
Nigeria, Mali, different users based-population, specifically  Offer different tiers of
subscriptions for individuals,
Rwanda,  Increased cross border trade one that requires low-cost
businesses, and enterprises
Tanzania, through more transparent usage.
 Franchises are used for
Zambia, facilitation of supply and  Challenging to develop a replication/scaling-up
Kenya, demand information flexible platform that can be
Mozambique,  Reduction in market offered in multiple countries
Uganda, inefficiencies through to overcome limited market
Malawi, improvement in supply sizes (i.e. limited market size
Mozambique, chains, more equitable pricing because based in one
Madagascar and better access to markets country).
for farmers and buyers.
 Stabilize supplies (by
avoiding over production) as
well as prices.
 Awareness improves farm-
gate prices, reduces spatial
arbitrage between markets,
enables the introduction of
new products such as weather
insurance
2. Resource Management
Lifelink, Nano Kenya  Improved access to clean and  Use of m-Money for direct  Educating people on the value
Ganesh, Water safe water facilitated by using payment makes a water of clean water is important to
Reporter, m-apps for purchase and supply system ecosystem adoption of a good ground
SMSONE water supply project.
payment (finance, technology supplier,
 Local development (irrigation)
 Increased convenience and local community, user) more
is also important to increase
cost savings in managing and feasible
value.
safeguarding water pump sets  Local teams collect data that
 Alternative income streams
in agriculture areas, by using is directly useful to
are needed to sustain projects,
mobile phone as remote subscribers
such as promotional messages
control for these pumps
 Improved water quality
monitoring, by using field
workers and local people
provided with mobile phones
to overcome geographic
challenges

3. Labor, Migration & Human Development

Text2Teach Philippines,  Increased access to updated  Working in collaboration with  Engaging the public sector to
Tanzania, educational content through government departments put in their share of resources
Chile downloads of teaching to match the grant provided
materials via mobile networks by Nokia helps in securing the
 Improved coordination of projects’ sustainability
rural education through because of the stake they have
improved contact with local placed in the project.
teachers
 Improved student
performance and classroom
environment as witnessed
from the high average scores
in science; improved teacher-
pupil, and pupil-pupil
interaction, and generally
upbeat classroom

Page 90
Mobile Country Lessons
Applications Development Impact Ecosystem (players, Business Model
platform, hyper-local (objectives, revenue,
content/service, etc) sustainability, scalability,
financing)
environment

Project Mind Philippines  Rural inhabitants can take  Needs to have high mobile
distance learning programs phone penetration rates and
through courseware in SMS familiarity with text
format, and SMS based messaging
testing systems
MILLIE India  Improved education outcomes  Handset vendors (Nokia in  Challenge is creating
through the use of context- this case) appear willing to partnerships to fund the roll-
specific games for language sponsor children and out of the games, and local
learning education related initiatives educational partners to allow
the usage of the MILLEE
games as part of their
curricula
BBC Janala Bangladesh  Access to affordable English  mobile network operators  There can be significant
language lessons via mobile partnership and sponsorship is interest in English language
phones (each 3-min lesson vital as they agreed to cut the learning m-apps (750,000
costs less than half the price cost of calls to the service by calls after first month of
for a cup of tea in a Dhaka tea 75% launch)
store)
Mobile for Kenya,  Inform and empower   Applications could be
Good Cameroon, disadvantaged individuals by designed to enable franchises,
(Kazi560), Tanzania, delivering vital health, in order to facilitate
Souktel Uganda, employment and community deployment in other countries
Nigeria, content via SMS.  Revenues from premium
Nepal,  In Kenya 60,000 have found services can be used to
Palestine, employment through the subsidize services to lower
Iraq, Kazi560 job service income users
Somaliland  Employment m-apps has high
potential of becoming
financially sustainable m-apps
(Kazi560 is already financial
sustainable, and Souktel
covers over 80% of its
running costs)
Jana, Mobenzi All countries,  Addition income streams by  Network of mobile phone  Some companies are
South Africa using mobile phone for based microworkers can be interested in marketing
microwork/microtasks developed, and individual amongst low income groups
outsourced by local or agents mobilized to provide  Challenge in finding sufficient
overseas clients, such as large scale services as private work for agents/microworkers
market research and surveys contractors  Jana provides interesting
 Access to flexible work  Mobile-based platforms can approach for commercial
opportunities as it can be be built to conduct simple companies to limited rural
conducted during spare time microwork affordability & could support
 Use of automated algorithms  Brings commercial companies m-applications while creating
to evaluate quality and & advertisers into the rural income for the targeted rural
compensate workers ecosystems end users
encourages high quality
delivery
Open Data Kit Sub-Saharan  Numerous areas related to  Open source community  Open platform can be utilized
(ODK), Africa, tracking, monitoring, and/or developed kits/ platforms for various data collection
RapidSMS, UNICEF, coordination of health could be very useful for m- needs. Already used by
Frontline SMS, over 50 programs, human rights, apps focused on development numerous projects/
JavaRosa countries disaster relief, election purposes organizations such as

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Mobile Country Lessons
Applications Development Impact Ecosystem (players, Business Model
platform, hyper-local (objectives, revenue,
content/service, etc) sustainability, scalability,
financing)
monitoring, missing persons  Virtual communities/networks Google.org and Google Earth
in natural disasters, etc. can be formed using simple Outreach, Grameen’s
 Improved access to food SMS platforms, allowing Community Knowledge
programs in Ethiopia and instantaneous two-way Worker program,
Malawi due to improved food communications on a large Episurveyor, etc.
distribution scale  ODK is limited to Android
 Connect and amplify voice of based phones
women and youth by virtually
linking rural individuals,
groups, and communities; and
providing virtual platform for
information exchange,
broadcasting ideas, and
organizing advocacy work
(refers to Jokko Initiative in
Senegal, which uses the
RapidSMS platform)
4. Governance / Political
Ushahidi Kenya +  Access to critical geo-  Crowd-sourcing can be viable  Leveraging crowd-sourcing
several other referenced information; on way to aggregate contributors can provide accurate and
countries issues such as political from all over the world critical information about
instability, violence, natural  Crowd-sourced players have specific events, which can be
disasters, health related been found to provide better harnessed for social objectives
epidemics, etc. information than mainstream  Challenge in filtering and
 Can be applied to track media due to higher quantity quality control of user
natural resources such as of information and wider generated data
water, soil types, land fertility, geographic coverage  The model is inherently useful
etc. for public sector, security &
aid scenario purposes and has
thus relied on external
finance, but has potential to
level its GIS features into
commercial marketing
TXT CSC, Philippines,  Improved access to public  Other government ministries’  Integrated government
1919, SMS e- Kenya information and services support to the fronting agency information from different
Service through a convenient, voice- is needed departments bring more value
based hotline  Government agencies in-  Challenge in moving beyond
 Access to public information charge of e-Government can being a library of information,
and services, and tracking be leveraged to deploy m-apps to a transactional basis
service status on a 24x7 basis  Need to ensure that other
 Time and cost savings by not ministries update their
having to travel to larger information on a regular basis
cities/centers for such  Users can be charged and may
information be willing to pay for m-apps
provided by the government
(five shilling per call) if it
brings sufficient time and cost
savings
CGNet Sawa India  Access to citizen journalism  Buy-in from the affected  Users’ willingness to pay up
for disenfranchised tribal political players can reduce to half of daily spent for call
groups through voice calls for resistance charges
hyper-local news, and  Moderators are needed to  Possibility of selling news
improved public ensure quality of news feeds to local media for
accountability as news items sustainability
have resulted in concrete

Page 92
Mobile Country Lessons
Applications Development Impact Ecosystem (players, Business Model
platform, hyper-local (objectives, revenue,
content/service, etc) sustainability, scalability,
financing)
corrective actions

5. Rural Finance, Infrastructure and ICT

Kilimo Salama Kenya  Small scale farm input  Identifying farmers and their  Good extension services, such
insurance can be transacted crop types and farming as training, are essential in
using mobile phones, and methods (such as inputs) order to educate the market
transaction cost can be about a product or new
means that other extension
reduced to cost of an SMS technique that could carry
services can be offered.
 Increased farmers’ security risk, to increase usage and
against crop losses, and more  Higher quality inputs, such as adoption.
diversified crop types and drought resistant crops, could  A win-win result in the early
higher yield potentially reduce potential stage of implementation
 Potential to protect rural losses. creates trust.
inhabitants against other
forms of unexpected life
events, as usage can be
extended to other insurance
products such as funeral
coverage and personal
accident

Page 93
Annex F: Detailed Case Study Information Sheets

Completed information sheets for the 92 m-ARD apps studied are available at
http://www.worldbank.org/ict/m-ard.

Annex G: Kenya Case Study

Annex H: Philippines Case Study

Annex I: Sri Lanka Case Study

These Annexes are attached as separate documents.

   

Page 94
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