Most discussed
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A Weekend with Simon Obwoya, Community Knowledge Worker
Posted on May 27, 2011Read moreHeather Thorne Matthews is the Director of Information and Communications Technology Innovation at the Grameen Foundation’s Technology Center.
I spent a weekend in early May with Simon Obwoya, one of Grameen Foundation’s Community Knowledge Workers, near Opit, Lalogi Subcounty, about 50km south-east of Gulu in Northern Uganda. Simon is 43, and is married, with 8 children, ranging from 6 months old to 19 years old. He and his family have 3 simple thatch-roof, mud brick huts in close proximity to their neighbours. They have no electricity, but have a bicycle,...
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Going “Down Market” with Financial Products
Posted on March 22, 2012Read moreAli Ndiwalana is Research Lead, AppLab Money Incubator, at Grameen Foundation Uganda.
As we strive to ensure that everyone has access to financial services – known as “financial inclusion” – by creating products that reach the poor, we can learn a trick or two from the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) folks that operate in developing countries. FMCGs are cheap, non-durable, staple goods that sell in large quantities, creating enormous cumulative profit. Examples in Uganda include cooking oil, soap, etc. Though the rhetoric from central banks indicates...
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Building Up a Credit History Outside of Financial Institutions
Posted on May 21, 2012Read moreAli Ndiwalana is Research Lead, AppLab Money Incubator, at Grameen Foundation Uganda.
Access to capital is cited as a major challenge facing small businesses in rural areas in developing countries. Financial-service providers overlook this segment partly because they lack appropriate information to help gauge risk or investment opportunities available in rural areas. But this information does exist, albeit outside of financial service providers. In this post, we discuss how triangulation of data from different sources may facilitate better risk analysis, and...
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Mobile Money Last-Mile Agents
Posted on April 19, 2012Read moreAli Ndiwalana is Research Lead,AppLab Money Incubator, Grameen Foundation Uganda
Agents are critical for the success of a mobile money (MM) ecosystem; they provide an avenue for cash-in (converting cash into “e-value”) and cash-out transactions. Grameen Foundation’s AppLab Money team has been to many rural villages in our quest to better understand the needs of users, and have often encountered mobile money users, but no agents in the vicinity. When users told us they made regular transactions, we asked how they managed to do this. In many cases, it was via...
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What do Values, Dreams and Sacrifices Mean for Mobile Money Providers and their Product Innovations?
Posted on April 12, 2012Read moreJulius Matovu is Research and Program Coordinator, AppLab Money Incubator, at Grameen Foundation Uganda.
Let me share a story about a family I visited early this month in Budwale Sub County, Mbale district, on the slopes of Mt. Elgon in Eastern Uganda. The family is headed by Asad Waniale, who lives with his wife, Nandudu, and their son, Faizal. The family depends on small-scale farming for its living, along with a Friesian cow, which is a source of pride for them because it supplements their nutrition and income through the milk it provides.
At the time of...
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From Subsistence Farmer to Commercial Farmer
Posted on June 21, 2012Read moreBenson Okech is Accountant, at Grameen Foundation Uganda.
When one is traveling to the Rwenzori area, what rings in the mind of the individual are the cascading waterfalls from the peak of Mt. Rwenzori and the presence of several species of wild animals in the national parks in western Uganda. There also are other breaking stories about this area, including a group of poor farmers who are helping others like themselves improve their livelihoods by expanding access to accurate, timely information.
Zangura Ibrahim has been a subsistence farmer for several...
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Mobile Financial Services for the Poor – What We Must Know
Posted on February 02, 2013Read moreFredrick Ndiwalana is Relationship Manager, Applab Money Accelerator, and Ali Ndiwalana is Research Lead, AppLab Money Incubator, at Grameen Foundation Uganda.
There is consensus that the poor (those living on less than $2.50 per day) need the same kind of financial services as their more affluent counterparts, albeit in smaller affordable units. What is not clear – especially in markets where formal financial exclusion is high and innovation is low – is whether financial institutions can design pro-poor financial products. After all, this is an area where...
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Are You Thinking Wider than Technology when Thinking about Mobile Money?
Posted on June 19, 2012Read moreLee-Anne Pitcaithly is Program Director, Mobile Financial Services Accelerator, Grameen Foundation Uganda.
Over the last few months, I have spent a lot of hours meeting with different financial services organisations discussing their planned mobile money integrations. In every instance, the financial institution was primarily addressing the integration only as a technology project. Thinking this way can set you up to fail as a business – and, more importantly, to fail your customers. Here are some other areas that you need to address when thinking about...
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Many Minds, Shared Vision
Posted on March 08, 2012Read moreToday, Grameen Foundation’s AppLab website gets a new look and takes on a new approach . The programs are the same – you’ll still see discussions about our Community Knowledge Workers using smartphones to provide vital information to farmers, about mobile technology helping pregnant mothers learn about nutrition and prenatal care, and about services that help poor entrepreneurs earn income by selling airtime through their phones. However, in addition to this new look, we also want to introduce a new approach we’re taking to tackling poverty – open...
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Can Trust and Reciprocity Within Social Networks Play a Role in Rural Financial Systems?
Posted on May 02, 2012Read moreJulius Matovu is Research and Program Coordinator, AppLab Money Incubator, at Grameen Foundation Uganda.
Let me introduce two interesting petty traders based in Owino market – the busiest market in downtown Kampala. They are Akim, a secondhand-shoes trader, and Patrick, a secondhand-clothes dealer.
Last weekend I visited this market for a variety of reasons – including buying some “new” secondhand clothes to revamp my wardrobe. As I wandered through the market I came across these two different petty traders; because each of these individuals had something...
