6 Information and communication technology: Recommendations
To support information and communication technologies donors should:
6.1 Have adequate capacity, technical skills and knowledge of the complex and rapidly changing digital technology landscape to enable successful investment without interfering with opportunities for commercial capital providers.
6.2 To facilitate financial sustainability by ensuring ICT-based services are designed to respond to an existing market demand.
6.3 Provide growth capital to ICT-based value-added services conditional on having a clear focus on impact measurement.
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executive summary [6 pages]
Digital solutions offer opportunities to overcome information access challenges when working with smallholders. Collecting data is now easy and lower in cost, allowing individual data to be collected from smallholder farmers directly. Understanding the factors behind the successful deployment of these technologies provides an opportunity to give investors clear markers when researching investments.
To support information and communication technologies donors should:
6.4 Together with impact investors, support the cadre of digital agri-entrepreneurs to develop ag-tech models and ensure that appropriately priced capital is available to test and scale what works.
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State of agri-SME sector – bridging the finance gap
[64 pages] breaks down the market in a comprehensive and holistic way to show where finance is specifically flowing and recommends ways for addressing the current agri-SME finance gap.
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AGRF Deal Room 2020 ICTs for improving investment readiness of small & medium agribusinesses [55 minutes]
Updated March 2023
Summary of recommendations for donors