Library

Handbook

The Digital Financial Services for Agriculture Handbook

The spread of DFS and information technology offers new ways of approaching agricultural development. Digital tools and data sources are changing numerous dimensions of providing financial and information services to last-mile, rural actors in agriculture, a sector that has been challenging to reach commercially but is critical to food security and economic development. By leveraging the growing availability of connectivity, mobile money services, simple mobile phones and smartphones, satellites and sensors, providers are increasingly able to bundle packages of services that smallholder farmers and small-scale agribusinesses can use to increase productivity and efficiency.

This handbook combines information on how digital technology has changed the provision of financial and information services for agricultural value chain actors, sharing lessons learned and experiences by some of the pioneers in the market. We hope that it will reach a broad industry audience at an opportune time, considering the pace of digital innovation and the importance of the agricultural sector to the economies and future of Sub-Saharan Africa.