The annual ICT4D Conferences have proven to be an invaluable opportunity for NGOs, private sector organizations, universities, governmental agencies and foundations to share their experience in using ICT to increase the impact of development programs and to learn from each other. In 2016, 715 individuals from 76 countries and 301 private sector and public sector and civil society explored the ways to harness the full power of digital solutions to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Our thanks to Accenture, Catholic Relief Services, Esri, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, iMerit Technology Services, Inmarsat, IS Solutions, Making All Voices Count, Mercy Corps, Microsoft, NetHope, Oxfam, Pandexio, Qualcom Wireless Reach, RTI International, SimbaNet and World Vision for making that possible.
Smallholder farmers are willing to save production capital if they are assured of the safety of their savings. The banks are also willing to extend credit to organized farmers if there is evidence of past transactions.
Unfortunately, the available ways of securing members' savings in safe padlocked boxes faces several challenges including breaking of locks and attacks on box keepers. In a bid to safe guard the savings, members keep their transactions in secrecy hoping outsiders will not know how much money they have saved.
This denies the groups a chance to build transaction history with the banks. To address this, Lutheran World Relief (LWR) explored a mobile phone group savings solution that provides a secure way of saving money using the Airtel mobile group wallet while at the same time making the farmers' transactions visible to the Centenary Bank.
We will present LWR’s digitized saving box product and how it parallels the three padlock approach with a three-PIN system and links to a bank account to provide accountability and visibility of both the group as well as individual transactions.