• Home
  • IFAD website
  • Subscribe to posts
  • Subscribe to comments

M-PESA: The power of mobile technology in livestock marketing. Kenya Learning Route, case 3.

Posted by S.Sperandini Sunday, March 4, 2012 4 comments

By Elaine Reinke and Silvia Sperandini

“I don’t need to go to the bank, I have the bank in my phone.” This is what all the actors in the Kenyan livestock and meat value chain have in common: they use M-PESA. On our journey of good practices across Kenya, the learning route participants discovered why this innovative solution has not only revolutionized the Kenyan business sector but also facilitates market access of rural pastoralists and livestock traders day by day.


Since 2007, Safaricom (Vodafone group) leads the way with an electronic money transfer system based on SMS messaging that has changed the lives of millions of Kenyans across all demographic and social segments of the population including the rural poor. M-PESA allows quick, easy and immediate payments from one person to another and from individuals to businesses, from supermarket expenses over electricity bills to school fees and remittances. To exchange e-money into cash and vice versa, customers use M-PESA kiosks to deposit or withdraw bank notes when needed.

For pastoralists and livestock traders in rural areas M-PESA has innovated their way of making business. Even who is miles from the next commercial bank and moving cattle along remote grazing areas and trekking routes can now transfer money back home anytime or easily sell livestock without the risk of carrying cash over long distances as well as reducing debts and delayed payments caused by promissory payments.

The success of M-PESA among pastoralists also links back to the availability of mobile network coverage even in remote areas and prevalent use of mobile phones in pastoralist communities. Thanks to this technology pastoralists are now connected to their family and friends, can quickly find out where to bring their cattle for grazing instead of roaming in search of water and pasture, and communicate with their business contacts at livestock markets while still at rangelands, saving time for other income generating activities and household chores.

Today, 15 million M-PESA customers use about 28,000 agent outlets countrywide for cash disposal and withdrawal. Safaricom’s innovation started as a small pilot project which now transfers more money than all Kenyan commercial banks together.

Designed to reach the poorer segments of the population who are not able to access the formal banking system, it is also becoming important gateway to enter into the commercial banking system since Safaricom in collaboration with Equity Bank introduced M-Kesho. This innovative banking product offers a bank account that includes micro-savings, micro-credit and micro-insurance products. M-PESA customers who join M-Kesho can also withdraw cash from the bank using their M-PESA accounts, save money and obtain small loans using the MPESA e-money as guarantee.

But what is it that made M-PESA such a success here in Kenya, while the uptake in other countries in the region remains relatively low?

This is one of the questions the “ruteros” discussed with our hosts of this case which include local M-PESA agents, maasai pastoralists, livestock and meat traders. Enabling factors which emerged from the discussion are the investment and commitment of Safaricom but also the entrepreneurial culture and readiness of the business sector and supportive government policy.

From pastoralists to terminal market: journey along the livestock value chain. Kenya Learning Route case 2.

Posted by S.Sperandini Saturday, March 3, 2012 0 comments

by Silvia Sperandini and Elaine Reinke

“If you want to understand the livestock value chain, just follow the cow!”, is the first thing that the “Ruteros” learned once we arrived in Kenya. By now, following the cow, we have reached the terminal market of Kiseria, south-eastern Kenya, where the Keekenyokie slaughterhouse is located and where the livestock value chain ends and the meat value chain starts.

During this journey we met various actors of the livestock chain from pastoralists and agro-pastoralists at village level (producers) to different types of traders which include: primary itinerant traders who move cattle from producers to primary markets, middle level traders who sell cattle into secondary and terminal markets, middlemen who operate as brokers, mainly at the market, taking animals from producers, itinerant traders and middle level traders, and negotiating with buyers and transporters.

Interacting with them we learned the tips and tricks of grading systems and pricing mechanisms but also understood that all these actors along the chain face a variety of challenges. Frequent drought periods cause market fluctuation and massive depreciation of stock. High incidences of livestock diseases and pests affect production as well as trading due to frequent quarantine. Poor market infrastructure and absence of organized facilities (feeding, water, vet services, troughs etc.) put animals and humans at risk. Limited capital and scarce access to credit affecting the production as well as trading. Limited livestock transportation mechanisms and continued moving on the hoof to markets affects quality of stock.

Kiseria is the most vibrant pastoralist-managed livestock market in Kenya and the Keekonyokie slaughterhouse is more than an abattoir. It is the gateway to the urban market and offers business opportunities to the pastoral Maasai communities located in southern Kenya and Tanzania. It is an innovative business enterprise that was established by Maasai pastoralist groups controlling the slaughterhouse management to the benefit of their communities.

The most innovative aspect of the business was found to be the IFAD-supported biogas plant to convert slaughterhouse waste into energy and bio fertilizer, reducing the environmental impact linked to its business activity. The company uses the biogas produced to generate electrical power for the meat cold room, processing equipment and heating water for cleaning the abattoir.

The Keekenyokie community has strong ambitions for the future of their slaughterhouse. Apart from expanding the facilities for slaughter, meat processing and biogas generation and storage, the business seeks to improve its hygiene and sanitation in order to meet quality standards for the export market. Packaging meat products with the Keekenyokie branding and selling them directly to supermarkets will further require additional capital to purchase machinery and training on using technical facilities. But the main innovation they would like to introduce is packaging and selling biogas to rural and peri-urban consumers.

The “Ruteros” were particularly impressed with the initiative and business-orientation of the Keekenyokie community, the effective integration of the value chain, as well as the biogas innovation, and gave a wealth of constructive recommendations to their hosts.

Bridging the gap: Connecting Maasai pastoralist communities to livestock markets. Kenya Learning Route, case 1.

Posted by S.Sperandini Friday, March 2, 2012 1 comments

By Elaine Reinke and Silvia Sperandini

“To improve a value chain, you have to be part of it”. With these words Michael Kibue, Director of Agritrade and one of the three PROCASUR Technical Coordinators of this route, opened his briefing to the “Ruteros” before visiting the first case in Amboseli, south-eastern Kenya. Here, in a beautiful natural scenario in the savanna near the Kilimanjaro, the participants met the Siana Masaai Women and Kilitome Market Access Committees (MAC) to discuss the livestock value chain and learn how these pastoral groups gained better access to the livestock market.

Thanks to a partnership between the local Maasai communities, African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), an international NGO, and Agritrade, a private sector company, MACs were created in 2009 to facilitate the development of an efficient pro-poor market chain that benefits livestock producers including pastoral women.

AWF established the conservation areas in which the Maasai groups live, gave a loan to Agritrade under the condition that the private sector player provides start-up trading capital to the Maasai groups and do business with them.
After witnessing and participating in traditional singing and dancing with jingling jewels, the group entered into a lively discussion with the MACs to better understand how they were able to bridge the gap between producers and markets. After many hours of storytelling, role plays and question and answer sessions, the route participants fully immerged into the MAC concept based on an integration of social, economic and environmental aspects through effective win-win partnerships.

The MACs replace the role of the middlemen shortening the livestock value chain and, in combination with value addition through fattening, enable the pastoral communities obtaining better income from livestock marketing. It also offers pastoralists access to urban meat markets, hence higher returns for producers who are typically exploited in the standard livestock marketing practices. In addition, MACs facilitate the transfer of awareness, knowledge and skills that empowers pastoralists to gain profitable returns from their livestock resources.

Another innovative practice that emerged from this case is the Siana women group which successfully ventured into a sector traditionally dominated by men. Given that male community members hold control over family herds and means of production, women occupy a lower status in decision-making processes with limited opportunities for their socio-economic empowerment. Transforming such culturally rooted norms and systems requires the commitment of champions to drive the change.

The Siana women group is leading this change process.With technical and financial support mobilized through the aforementioned partnerships, they are now more experienced in dealing with market dynamics, pasture and livestock management. Last year they also established their own cattle head thanks to a small donation received from the IFAD Help Fund. They are now livestock producers and traders with a stronger decision-making role within their households and communities. The challenges to overcome are still many (such as market and climate instability, animal diseases and poor access to veterinarian services etc.) – but the “Ruteros” believe that with their strong commitment and entrepreneurial spirit, the Maasai groups will continue their journey towards a better livelihood.


What's mine is yours: household dynamics and women's wages

Posted by Hazel Bedford 0 comments


What’s mine is yours: household dynamics and women’s wages
International Women’s Day 2012


“As many as a third of married women in Malawi and a fifth of married women in India are not involved in spending decisions, even about their own income.” [1]

I read that sentence twice to be sure I hadn’t misunderstood it, and then carried on:

“Even in an upper-middle-income country like Turkey, more than a quarter of married women in the lowest income quantile lack control over their earned income.”

©IFAD/Asad Zaidi
Women’s “lack of control” over the money that they themselves bring home shows the deep-seated nature of gender inequality. If we don’t fight that inequality, then enabling women to increase their incomes may only put more money in the pockets of their husbands. 

Similarly, helping them to increase their productivity may put more food on the market – but it may not change the women farmers’ quality of life.

That’s why IFAD’s work to empower women is so crucial to everything that we do. Without that empowerment, inequality will continue to prevent the benefits of economic growth and social development reaching poor rural women.

That in turn hampers development – leaving deep pockets of deprivation and desperation that are handed on from generation to generation.

Even more shocking and revealing are statistics on what women think about domestic violence:

“On average, 29 percent of women in countries with data concurred that wife beating was justified for arguing with the husband, 25 percent for refusing to have sex, and 21 percent for burning food.”[2]

Those are just averages. The country-specific figures are truly shocking – with over 80 per cent of women in one east African nation saying that wife-beating is justified.

Let’s walk the gender talk
There’s a lot of apparent consensus today at the international level that levelling the playing field for women makes economic sense. IFAD President Nwanze is a vocal champion of women’s rights. And Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti went off-script at our recent Governing Council meeting to stress the importance of women’s role and their rights.

Yet empowerment is difficult to do, and it’s difficult to measure. For that reason, one of our commitments to our Members under IFAD9 is to improve the indicators that measure impact on gender equality and women’s empowerment, so that we can better analyse what works and what doesn’t for poor rural women. At the same time, we are committed to promoting expanded economic opportunities for women.

When she visited IFAD last year, UN Women Director Michele Bachelet touched on the importance of gender champions and quotas. International Women’s Day is a good occasion for us to remember her words.

An organization that works to empower poor rural women must have powerful women within it. And it must have powerful men and women who are prepared to stand up and champion women’s rights.

Let’s celebrate International Women’s Day at IFAD with a renewed commitment to fight gender inequality on our doorstep and in the countries where we work.

[1] World Bank: World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development, p. 20.
[2] WDR 2012: p. 83.

Inside IFAD’s 2012 Governing Council: ‘Feeding the world, protecting the planet’

Posted by Timothy Ledwith Wednesday, February 29, 2012 0 comments

A small army of social reporters covered IFAD’s 2012 Governing Council of UN member states last week, attracting unprecedented online attention to the meeting at the agency’s Rome headquarters. This robust virtual presence supplemented regular media coverage of the high-profile gathering, which featured heads of state and other top officials and policy makers, as well as one of the world’s leading philanthropists.

The GC convenes annually to guide IFAD’s strategic investments in smallholder agricultural development and poverty reduction. Its theme this year – ‘Feeding the world, protecting the planet’ – emphasized the need to make rural livelihoods more viable and environmentally sustainable in an era of population growth and climate change.

Concurrent with the GC this year, IFAD’s biennial Farmers’ Forum also filled the agency’s conference rooms and corridors with representatives of small-scale producers’ organizations around the globe.

Throughout the meetings, the social reporters blogged, tweeted, and posted photos and videos on IFAD’s various social media platforms. In total, the GC and Farmers’ Forum produced some 5,900 tweets (under the hashtags #ifadgc and #fafo12), which appeared in Twitter feeds with millions of followers worldwide. The main speakers and panels, plus many side events, were also webcast live.

To review all of the GC and Farmers’ Forum posts, check the ‘blog archive’ links in the lower right column of this web page. Links to a small sampling of individual blog posts follow.

IFAD President looks ahead.  In the run-up to the GC, the President of IFAD, Kanayo F. Nwanze, shared his high expectations for the 2012 meeting in a brief video interview.

‘Youth in Agriculture.’ At a Farmers’ Forum pre-meeting held on 18 February, about 30 delegates from rural youth organizations developed action plans to help make agriculture a viable option for young entrepreneurs in developing nations.

‘The future is in our hands.’ The Farmers’ Forum kicked off on 20 February with a grassroots focus on the challenges faced by smallholder farmers and fishers around the world.

Smallholders and Rio+20. On the second day of the Farmers’ Forum, a working group on the upcoming Rio+20 conference reflected smallholders’ perspectives on climate change and agriculture, and their determination to be heard by world leaders.

Governing Council opens. As the GC began on 22 February, there was a palpable sense of anticipation about the presence of two heads of state, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who delivered keynote speeches that day.

Meeting women farm leaders. After the opening speeches at the GC reaffirmed the central role of women and youth in smallholder agriculture, a Farmers’ Forum side event on women’s leadership got down to the nitty-gritty of development work and gender equality.

‘What will Rio herald for agriculture?’ At this compelling GC centre-stage event, Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network, called for decision makers to put farmers first and allow them to produce food sustainably.

The role of remittances. The immense development potential of rural investments by communities in the diaspora catalysed an animated discussion at this GC side event, organized by IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances.

Gates at centre stage. On day two of the GC, following a keynote address by Italian Minister for International Cooperation Andrea Riccardi, philanthropist Bill Gates offered his views on a different future for smallholder agriculture. Another take on the Gates event is here , and a blog post about the expanding partnership between IFAD and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is here.

By the time the GC and Farmers’ Forum wrapped up, participants had been informed, inspired and challenged by these discussions and many more. And IFAD, through its social reporting network, had captured that excitement and shared it with interested and influential people worldwide.

How do innovations travel? In people’s mind. Kenya Learning Route on Innovating Livestock Marketing, day 1

Posted by S.Sperandini Tuesday, February 28, 2012 2 comments

by Silvia Sperandini and Elaine Reinke

“We are the birds who letting innovations travel around the world”, is how Diana Puyo, PROCASUR Africa Coordinator, yesterday opened the Learning Route on innovative livestock marketing from Northern to Eastern Africa organized by PROCASUR in partnership with IFAD’s Near East, North Africa and Europe Division and technical support of the Policy and Technical Advisory Division.

22 “Routeros”, route participants from various IFAD-supported projects and implementing partners, are now gathered for an intense 12-day journey across various districts and communities in Kenya. The majority of them comes from Sudan but the group also includes participants from Somalia, Madagascar, Ethiopia, the US and Europe, who are all connected through the common interest of improving their practice in the livestock sector and become agents of change in their countries by bringing new ideas and successful solutions back to their projects, organizations and communities packaged in concrete innovation plans they will develop during the route.

Over the next days, the route participants are the knowledge seekers who will learn directly from rural communities and practitioners – the local champions. The trainers probably never went to school, and are unlikely to read or write, but they are the real experts since faced similar challenges and identified solutions to overcome them.

The first day in Nairobi was preparatory for the field experiences but already stimulated a lot of rich and lively discussions , fueled by group of Kenyan livestock experts who presented an overview of the national livestock industry. Now many questions are on the table and are waiting to be answered by the good practices that will be visited: What are effective ways to bridge the gap between markets and producers? How to meet market information needs of different stakeholders, and how to improve effectiveness and performance of development projects aimed at livestock marketing?

In the next days the participants will visit the following host cases:
- Siana Masaai Women and Kilitome Market Access Committees
- Using M- PESA as an Innovative Livestock Marketing Tool for Pastoralists
- Linking Community Slaughter Houses to Urban Markets
- Anolei Camel Milk Cooperative
- Meru Goat Breeders Association

Tomorrow will be our first encounter with some of the rural champions who will be our trainers during this route … don’t miss it. Remember, innovations travel in people’s mind – stay tuned join our journey!

Cooperatives - A purpose beyond the profit

Posted by Beate Stalsett 0 comments

It’s the last hours of the last day of the 4th global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum, and you would think that the energy of the participants would be running low. I am happy to tell you that this was not the case of the side event on the International Year of Cooperatives (IYC). The meeting room was full of chatter and energy, and simultaneous translations were being done in every corner. We were there to discuss cooperative enterprises, and their role in transforming smallholder agriculture into profitable business. Most importantly we were there to listen to and learn from the experiences of three representatives from cooperatives in Armenia, Cambodia and Kenya:
  • Mr. Vardan Hambardzumyan, President of Federation of Agricultural Associations (FAA), Armenia
  • Mr. Pan Sopheap, Executive Director of Farmer and Nature Net (FNN), Cambodia
  • Mr. Philip Kiriro, President Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF), Kenya
Why cooperatives, why now?
The United Nations (UN) has declared 2012, as the International year of Cooperatives (IYC). Nora Ourabah Haddad from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) opened the conversation and told us that the IYC has been one of the most popular UN years with a support from over 90 countries. The Rome based UN-agencies have joined forces to promote agricultural cooperatives throughout the IYC and beyond. Nora started her presentation by underlining the definition of a cooperative:

“A cooperative is an autonomous association of women and men, united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise.” (International labour organization recommendation 193)

It is important to stress the definition, since the terminology might not be familiar to everyone, and cooperatives may have different meanings in different contexts. An agricultural cooperative is an important platform for rural development because of its financial and social dimensions. The panellists were asked to elaborate on two important aspects of cooperatives: What makes cooperatives viable? And how do you build ownership of the cooperative among its members?

What makes cooperatives viable?
Mr Hambardzumyan said that services offered by cooperatives to their members is one of the main factors of making cooperatives viable. The services need to be targeted and benefiting the members. He said: “The cooperative is a tool in our hand to solve our problems”. Financial turnover is another factor that is of key importance to make a cooperative viable.

Mr Sopheap continued on the same note and said that empowering members to help themselves is one important aspect. He then went on to say that making a profit is also essential, and to allocate a collective fund so that the cooperative can sustain itself. Additionally Mr Kiriro emphasized the importance of having the right policy framework and support to make cooperatives become strategic business partners. Leadership at political level is another relevant and important factor.

In other words, empowerment, policies and profit are key elements in making the cooperatives self-sufficient and viable.

How do you build ownership of a cooperative?
This leads us to the next question that was posed to the panellists, how do you make the members feel real ownership of the cooperative? Building ownership of a cooperative is important. If a cooperative is to live up to its definition it needs to: Be supported by its members and embrace voluntary membership paradigm. It also needs to have grassroots support and to be democratically governed.

Mr Sopheap suggested three key elements to make sure cooperatives and their members are in sync: First of all, introduce the cooperative’s principles to members, make sure everyone knows and understands them. Second, build the members’ trust. The members need to trust that they will benefit from the cooperative. Last but not the least, create an institutional collective fund.

The need for training and resources
The need for capacity building was something that came up several times in the discussion. Training is needed for members of cooperatives and for stakeholders. A representative from the International Labour Organization (ILO) presented the My.coop training package. This package is freely available online and has many learning programmes. My.coop is designed for managers and members of cooperatives, as well as organisations and individuals that train agricultural cooperatives. Its objective is to enable people to address challenges specific to cooperatives in market oriented agricultural development. Try it out!

What came out loud and clear from listening to the experience of the participants was the power and potential of cooperatives in rural development. Cooperatives can help people help themselves and give a voice to poor rural people. During the event new connections were made, and experiences and challenges shared. A conversation with multiple stakeholders started that hopefully will carry on throughout the IYC and beyond.

Read more about how IFAD work with rural institutions and cooperatives: