Author: Lokendra Singh

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How Arifu can enable youth employability in Sub – Saharan Africa

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By Andrew Thiong’o

Youth Unemployment Kenya

Graduating from university is one of the most memorable experiences that I have ever had. However, the hustle and bustle involved in looking for a good opportunity upon graduation was not as memorable. It was during this “school – to – work” transition period that I enrolled into a program called Yusudi. This program helped me develop the necessary soft skills, employability skills and marketable skills required for the job market. It’s been 3 years since I graduated from the program and the skills I learnt have served me well in the different employment opportunities I have had since. However, many young people across East Africa do not have access to these resources which is quite evident in the ever increasing rate of youth unemployment across the region while businesses still struggle to find suitable human talent to advance their businesses. 

According to a report by Summit Recruitment, Kenya reports a youth unemployment rate of 39.1 %, Tanzania 24%, Uganda 18%, Rwanda 2.1%, and Ethiopia’s is at 2.78%. The Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) CEO Jacqueline Mugo, cited that this current situation threatens Kenya’s social structure because there is a high level of frustration and discontentment among the unemployed Kenyan youth. From the employer perspective, an FKE survey conducted in 2018 dubbed Skills Mismatch Report showed that 16% of job opportunities took more than 6 months to fill due to job applicants not possessing the required skills. Potential employers also bemoaned having to incur the cost of training recent graduates who lack the necessary employability and technical skills required to fill available job vacancies. A study conducted by CAP Youth Empowerment Institute titled ‘’what employers think of soft skills’’ showed that 42.8% of employers sighted a lack of  soft skills as a key factor influencing their decision not to  hire  young people looking for employment opportunities in Kenya. Digital solutions such as Arifu are working to address the soft skills and employability skills gaps among the youth and boost their chances of securing employment.

Arifu can help – And how!

Arifu has sought to address this problem by developing content that helps youth, our learners improve their chances of securing both formal and informal job and livelihood opportunities. This content is disseminated through Arifu’s chatbot on SMS as well as chat platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger which is accessible for FREE to the learners. The SMS platform is uniquely beneficial to the learners overcoming the smartphone divide in the communities. Some of the insightful topics covered by Arifu  include support on resume and cover letters, interview skills, job search and application techniques, microentrepreneurship training as well as workplace etiquette. Young people from rural, marginalized communities, youth affected by conflict as well as young women face more hurdles in securing job opportunities compared to their respective counterparts. Arifu’s job seeking resources content is tailored towards addressing the specific needs of a specific demographic by providing learners with marketable skills required for the job market.

Aside from helping learners meet the desired employee requirements, Arifu’s solution is also geared towards helping hiring organizations. HR firms with online courses on soft skills, technical skills, marketable skills and employability skills are able to utilize Arifu’s platform to upskill job seekers. Arifu’s platform comes with surveys and quizzes that act as a measuring and evaluating tool that will enable HR firms to assess the impact of their content on users. Social enterprises and NGOs looking to empower the youth through job creation initiatives can also utilize Arifu’s platform to create awareness about their programs and have more unemployed youths apply and benefit from their initiatives.

Universities and other vocational training institutions can utilize Arifu’s platform to provide a crash course on employability skills for their graduates to assist them find job opportunities once they finish school. Arifu’s WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger chat platforms provide an appealing crash course to this target audience because of the platform’s ability to share rich media content which makes the learning process fun and more engaging for the learners. 

With the diverse economic impacts of Covid-19 leading to an increase in the number of unemployed youth across East Africa, Arifu’s efforts in promoting youth employability training including entrepreneurship through its platform will go a long way in helping the youth secure and create opportunities which will contribute towards reducing the high rate of unemployment  across the region.

 To find out more about Arifu’s youth employability training initiative, email us at andrew@arifu.com or sood@arifu.com

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Articles Impact Webinars

Last-Mile Delivery or Deadlock: Addressing Financial Inclusion in the Face of COVID-19

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An Action Summary based on an interactive webinar held April 28, 2020

By Christabell Makokha (Director of Patnerships at IDEO.org), Osman Siddiqi (Director of Research and Impact, Arifu), and Wendy Chamberlain (Global Program Director at The BOMA Project)

 

Context

Formal financial inclusion in Kenya has more than doubled in the last decade, from 29% (2006) to 83% (2019)[1], however, rural communities still remain underserved by financial institutions. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying move to promote use of Digital Financial Services (DFS), the most vulnerable people in these communities, especially in rural areas where infrastructure may not be robust, will increasingly become more excluded unless innovations for cost-effective, secure digital financial services that respond to real service limitations and user capacities are quickly developed and rolled out. These concerns also are widespread in “last mile” communities worldwide.

In light of these challenges, Arifu, The BOMA Project, Busara, IDEO.org, My Oral Village, and The David Weekley Family Foundation hosted a webinar on April 28, 2020 to explore the barriers to adoption of DFS, especially among women in underserved rural communities in Kenya. The objective of the webinar was three-fold: 

  1. To explore the changes and opportunities resulting from this steady push to DFS.
  2. Identify barriers to the adoption of existing DFS.
  3. In the context of COVID-19, discuss how we can adapt existing financial products and services to help rural communities stabilize their livelihoods and protect the health of their families, as well as build resilience for the future.

The insights captured below and in the online summary documents are sourced from a broad range of actors who attended the webinar.

DFS during Covid-19

Adoption and Use of Digital Financial Services in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic

In these unprecedented times, DFS have become crucial, driven by social distancing norms and the need to reduce risk of spreading the virus through handling of physical cash. Financial institutions, government, and development actors are taking different measures to facilitate this digital economy[2,3]. Governments are pushing digital payments by encouraging financial service providers to explore ways of deepening mobile money usage, and reducing its cost. Central Banks have supported this initiative by approving the increase of daily mobile money transaction limits. In response, mobile money providers have reduced and/or eliminated transaction fees for smaller transactions. For example, in Kenya, Safaricom has waived fees for all transactions below KES 1,000; Airtel waived fees for all transactions for 90 days, starting on March 17. Targeted consumer messaging accompanied these directives with messages such as: 

Curb the spread of Coronavirus! Use M-PESA to avoid cash & enjoy Free Bank to M-PESA Transactions. #ForYou

Barriers to Adoption and Use of DFS for Women in Underserved Rural Communities

While government, private sector, and development actors are pushing for a cash-lite ecosystem and reducing the need for physical transfers, women in underserved rural communities face systemic barriers that prohibit them from participating in this digital economy. In Northern Kenya, we see the following key barriers to adoption and use of DFS among women in rural areas:

Barrier #1: DFS is not as convenient as existing informal mechanisms 

While service providers and development actors have grappled with this challenge over the last decade, there is urgency to solve this challenge now if rural communities are to participate in what is an increasingly digital economy in the wake of COVID-19. DFS infrastructure is wanting; physical cash is still the more attractive option as there are limited cash-in cash-out points (CICO), coupled with few use cases for digital money. Additionally, the physical nature of cash provides a high degree of trust and utility in communities underserved by DFS. For financial service providers, because the use case for digital money is limited beyond CICO, there is low incentive to invest in digital infrastructure or an agent network. 

The urgency is further heightened given the increased need and reliance for external injections of cash via cash transfers in what is becoming a highly volatile market. During these challenging times, it is not uncommon to see long lines at CICO points as mobile money recipients line up to cash out funds received from government and/or humanitarian organizations, with no observable recommendations for social distancing and limited value propositions provided to encourage digitization of money. 

Barrier #2: Agent access and poor liquidity

Access to agents remains a significant challenge for rural women. A study by Caribou Digital and MicroSave has shown that as a result of COVID-19, DFS wallet balances are volatile with observed increases in average transaction values simultaneously with a reduction in overall transaction volume, putting pressure on agents’ ability to balance their liquidity[4,5]. This is further taking place in locations which have limited agent networks. Given the infrastructural constraints that typify areas like this, the push to uptake DFS in light of COVID-19 further shows the weaknesses of pre-existing public and private services[6]. More needs to be done in terms of intentional design of agent networks that are aligned with existing cash transfer points, liquidity flows that map towards regular monthly government cash transfers, and relevant products for low literacy populations. 

Barrier #3: Low literacy and numeracy skills

Often overlooked, but widely recognized as significant, barriers due to low literacy and numeracy skills[7]render DFS unusable for many poor people. Pockets of rural Kenya still experience high and persistent illiteracy, with the highest rates registered amongst women. In the context of COVID-19, “isolated illiterates”, often women-headed households, are especially vulnerable when communications and resources are channelled through text,. Research from My Oral Village, using a simple and easily-replicated field test has shown that illiteracy is strongly associated with inability to read or write multi-digit numbers (such as KES 5,370). This inability makes it difficult to write a cash amount in the input field of a mobile money app without help, and increases vulnerability to the loss of personal financial information at CICO agents and other points where cash meets its digital analog. COVID-19 has added to these challenges, often requiring that illiterate adults leave their homes to get help to understand messages on their phones. These types of barriers perpetuate distrust of DFS and make it seem either unusable or more time consuming than cash. As COVID-19 influences uptake of DFS, those who have been marginalized by literacy previously will remain on the margins and miss important communications concerning their financial lives.

Literacy levels Kenya

How Do We Make Inclusive Finance Truly Inclusive?

Too often, conversations around financial inclusion via DFS lead towards siloed solutions that separately focus on the customer experience, the agent/point of delivery, and the broader systemic challenges that need to be addressed. While these solutions are important, the lack of connective tissue/adhesive linking them together towards a common outcome of improved financial health/resiliency for the customer means we continue to face the above mentioned barriers. Solving for one, does not solve for all; it is unrealistic to think that a single entity can solve for the breakdown in delivery of relevant financial products and services for the extremely poor. Rather, this requires a multisectoral approach where government, private sector, and  social sector actors work together towards an outcome centered on the most vulnerable customers. 

As a starting point, we do not propose significant changes in how each DFS provider works, rather, we propose improving what they already are doing with a bigger vision in mind: inclusive finance for marginalized populations. We think the starting point is the creation and adherence to a set of standard-setting principles that ensure that products and services intended for the extreme poor, especially in the wake of COVID-19 are relevant, reliable, and clearly build the path towards individual resiliency. 

Five principles for delivering to the extreme poor 

  • Know your customer: Take time to ensure that you understand the barriers and constraints unique to the target market. This principle applies to all customers, however, for marginalized and illiterate customers, the main barriers are:
      1. Low literacy and numeracy skills
      2. High dependency on and preference for cash
  • Design relevant products and services:
      1. Design and provide products and services that are low-cost and can be accessed in local and actionable language.
      2. Create digital products and operations that are faster and easier than analog counterparts. 
      3. Integrate into systems that the rural customer actively uses — e.g., chamas (a type of ROSCA); dukas (small shops or kiosks) savings groups; mobile money agents for payments and remittances; G2P cash transfers.
  • Design for ease of access and mitigate delivery constraints: 
      1. Minimize access constraints to liquidity as needed within communities
      2. Provide regular and reliable CICO access through liquidity management
      3. Lower the barrier for local businesses to become agents.
  • Address the literacy and numeracy divide: 
      1. In financial inclusion, innumeracy is more disabling than illiteracy, and less difficult to surmount. 
      2. At product interfaces, cash images or proxies and field-tested images of vital information, can increase safety while empowering adults to achieve basic numeracy. 
      3. Support community and household commitments to adult literacy and numeracy training 
      4. Provide products and services that can be accessed with voice and pictures
  • Define the end goal:
    1. The goal of financial inclusion should not just be access and usage of financial services, but rather customer financial health 

By committing to these principles as a broader community we are collectively ensuring that any product or service will not be rolled out without broader consideration for its long-term impact and the provision of the necessary support to ensure that it actually works for the extremely poor. We are committing to working in partnership and not in isolation with the belief that any lasting solution will be successful through collaboration of thought and approach. 

Where Do We Go from Here?

As we contemplate how women in rural communities manage challenges related to COVID-19 and participate in the growing digital economy, there are opportunities to leverage increased use of DFS to implement immediate solutions that respond to the crisis, as well as subsequent needs related to recovery and building their resilience, and lastly, adapting to new ways . 

We see three ways in which stakeholders can work together to address these opportunities:

  1. Coordination of stakeholders to design products and services focused on addressing the barriers highlighted above. Given how interrelated the challenges are, several interventions might need to be deployed at once to unlock DFS for rural and illiterate communities. This systemic approach will require coordination across a range of actors.

OPPORTUNITIES TO PLUG-IN

  • Help us finalize and then commit to the above-referenced principles committing to service delivery of products and services to last mile populations that ensure more than just access and usage, but have a longer term vision of broad scale economic inclusion and resiliency as an outcome. Contact the authors for more details.
  • Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, IDEO.org is running the Women and Money Program to design solutions that can unlock new opportunities to include women. In partnership with The BOMA Project, the program is focusing on Northern Kenya and open to working with partners to address DFS challenges for marginalized women in rural areas. If interested in partnering, contact Christabell Makokha at christabell@ideo.org and Wendy Chamberlin at wendy.chamberlin@bomaproject.org.
  • Arifu is a chatbot platform aiming to bridge the digital divide in quality information access. Learners with even the most basic phone can access training via interactive SMS or smartphone chat applications, for free. For COVID-19 Arifu has developed a two-pronged approach: the starter pack that focuses on delivering information that tackles the most urgent needs of different populations, including on health information, DIYs on masks and sanitizers, digital literacy learning content, how to apply physical distancing as an SME and more. In addition, Arifu is partnering with organizations to create contextualized advice for their audiences to solve problems as they arise. This content can then be accessible through licensing for additional partners to send to their audiences if it fits challenges as they see them. Please go to www.arifu.com for more details.
  • My Oral Village invites you to get in touch to discuss how to “oralize” your digital solutions to better serve low-numeracy people. We can provide a rapid numeracy assessment tool and/or help with crafting solutions. Please write to Brett Matthews at brett@myoralvillage.org and visit myoralvillage.org for information about Oral Information Management (OIM) design. 
  1. Advocacy: The COVID-19 pandemic will continue to redefine how we live and transact; it is therefore imperative to identify new solutions and/or tailor existing ones to be more responsive to the needs of populations in rural areas with insufficient infrastructure to support the uptake of DFS. While this makes sense in the initial stages of disease spread, a dynamic multidimensional response is necessary. Less focus has been on how COVID-19 is impacting rural communities and what solutions will be appropriate given contextual constraints previously referred to. We believe it is important to continue to raise awareness as to last mile challenges and solutions that go beyond point-in-time but rather have long-term economic recovery in mind. 

OPPORTUNITIES TO PLUG-IN

  • FSD Kenya is an independent trust that promotes inclusive finance as a means to poverty reduction in Kenya. FSD Kenya works closely with the government, the financial services industry, and other partners in the pursuit of an inclusive financial system that supports Kenya’s long-term economic development goals. Starting in March 2020, FSD Kenya partnered with BFA Global to produce the “Kenya Covid-19 Diaries,” a series of blogs and case studies that describe how low-income households are coping with the changes occasioned by the pandemic. FSD Kenya has also launched an online dashboard – the“Covid-19 EconData Kenya” site – which gathers and publishes data aimed at helping policy makers better target economically vulnerable populations. The dashboard additionally tracks impacts of the response to Covid-19 on the Kenyan economy and the financial sector, as well as people’s financial lives and resilience. For information or collaboration please contact Amrik Heyer via email at amrik@fsdkenya.org.
  • BFA Global is a consulting firm that uses finance, data, and technology to build a more sustainable and equitable world. As the coronavirus spread approached the pandemic phase, BFA’s researchers designed and deployed a rapid “dipstick” survey to assess how the COVID-19 response was impacting income and overall financial health with 1,500+ people in five countries. This work has expanded to 10 markets, and has been repeated with similar respondents over 2 waves already, with 3 more planned. The COVID-19 and Financial Health survey and results dashboards have been open-sourced and widely shared across multiple sectors. These results have already been valuable to the overall industry conversation i.e., a CGAP article and a Kenya dashboard published by FSDK. The results from Wave 1 have also triggered an article by the Director for Access to Financial Services in Mexico and has been included in his newsletter to the industry. If interested, please contact David del Ser at  ddelser@bfaglobal.com.
  1. Research: As referenced above, sufficient focus is being placed on COVID-19 implications in population dense areas. Much less is understood about the household and market effects in rural areas. It is not enough to apply findings from one context to the other as the constraints and opportunities are contextually distinct enough (e.g., infrastructure, access to education, local government capacity, etc.).

OPPORTUNITIES TO PLUG-IN

  • Busara is coordinating a set of COVID-19 perspectives with the aim of understanding the medium and long-run effects of COVID-19 through a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach with a focus on using behavioral science to address fundamental behavioral challenges imposed by COVID-19. Still in early stages of defining the research agenda, we’re interested in contributions from all interested actors. To get involved please contact nnenna.okoye@busaracenter.org or mareike.schomerus@busaracenter.org. Busara is also regularly adding to its COVID-19 response page including guides on how to do remote research. See Busara Stand Against Covid-19 for more details.
  • My Oral Village conducts research to identify the capabilities of  low-literacy and low-numeracy people who live in last mile communities to inform the design of tools that they can use to participate safely in DFS. To explore a research project, please contact Brett Matthews (brett@myoralvillage.org) and visit myoralvillage.org for information about Oral Information Management (OIM) design. 

While the challenges discussed in the webinar and summarised here are not new or unique to COVID-19, the effects are even more compound now for the most vulnerable communities and it’s important we address these challenges to facilitate their participation in an increasingly digital economy. 

***

Resources

Reports shared from the webinar (link)

COVID-19 resources (link)

Event recording (link)

Event slides (link)

***

Authored by

Christabell Makokha, Director of Partnerships, IDEO.org | Christabell@ideo.org 

Wendy Chamberlin, Global Program Director, The BOMA Project | wendy.chamberlin@bomaproject.org

Osman Siddiqi, Director of Research & Impact, Arifu | osman@arifu.com 

This document was published online on May 19, 2020.

Footnotes:
  1. Inclusive finance? Not there yet…
  2. What African operators are doing to help during COVID-19 outbreak
  3. Kenya Prioritizes M-Pesa During Coronavirus
  4.  The Role of DFS Agents during the Covid-19 crisis
  5.  Market-led solutions for financial services
  6. Reaching services from satellite communities is costly and challenging as network connectivity is inconsistent, security remains a real threat and, for example, the A2 in Northern Kenya is one of the only tarmacked roads. 
  7. Defined as people unable to read a simple sentence or instruction and state a 3- or 4-digit number (typically a value equivalent to 20 to 100 US dollars in local currency) as words (i.e., 3 thousand four hundred twenty-seven rather than simply stating the numerals 3, 4, 2, 7).

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Impact Innovation

The Role of Predictive Analytics in Digital Advisory (Part 2)

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By Osman Siddiqi

 

Our previous post on predictive analytics shared the incredible story of Zachary Ndegwa about how he used Arifu to multiply his income streams over the years. This story makes us ask every day how we can make Arifu a lifelong learning companion for people particularly to inform day-to-day decisions at scale. 

To achieve this vision, it becomes important to understand how to credibly and frequently know if an Arifu learner is learning, applying knowledge, and how to respond with information or service linkages across time, space, and needs in order to build the kind of agency, decision-making, and growth Zachary exhibited with a little help from Arifu. 

This is not straightforward work. But we have some serious momentum.

Arifu’s Theory of Change is complicated. It’s complicated because we’re sector and problem-agnostic. What this means is that our operations cut across agriculture, financial services, health, employment, business growth, across countries, learner segments, and their intersections. Even so, two aspects of our Theory of Change drive our strategy. First, is a deep focus on us being able to inform day to day decision-making and activities through accessible learning content. The second is about leveraging market forces from the private sector, government, and more to showcase our value-proposition to partners to drive their growth and spur further creation, iteration, and scaling of Arifu’s content. 

In 2020, however, we have laid strong foundations for honing in on these two big questions across multiple learner segments. This includes a recently concluded pilot study in partnership with AgriFin Accelerate and with researchers from the World Bank and Harvard Business School. This study showed linkages between our internal Learning Scores (our Knowledge Score and Skills Score) and with self-reported farm revenues and profits. It further showed linkages with learning retention.

Locations of all surveyed farmers for this study

Figure 1: Locations of all surveyed farmers for this study

 

The study categorized a random set of learners into four groups ranging from very low engagement with our content to very high engagement. Arifu’s backend Learning Scores were compared with findings from an in-person survey implemented with the World Bank. The survey asked learners about their demographics, farm-level outcomes, and replicated questions from within our content in person. The sample size in the pilot size was 153 learners. The learners had engaged with Arifu’s content at least three months before the survey was implemented. The study taught us two main things:

  1. Our Learning Scores are predictive of learning retention i.e. farmers’ responses to our quiz questions were highly correlated with their responses to questions in the content.
  2. Our Learning Scores were predictive of financial outcomes such as annual revenue and profits.

Importantly, the results showed strong associations between the Learning Scores and financial outcomes and resolved an open question on learning retention. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the Learning Score is predictive of an increase in annual revenue of approximately KSH 9,065 (USD 84) and in annual profits of around KSH 1865 (USD 17).

Figure 2: Arifu’s Learning Score associations with total revenue and profits. Given the low resolution of the image above, the metrics from top to bottom on the y-axis are Respondent’s earnings past 30 days, Total HH income past 30 days, Total revenue past year, Total profits past year.

 

The findings tell us the Arifu Learning Score has strong potential as a possible Credit Score. In addition, it is possible that the Learning Scores are good predictors of behavior change and adoption of practices, purchase of inputs, and more.

We have seen through several independent studies that providing actionable and relevant information can improve the quality of life of learners, show learners how to use products and services in beneficial and non-harmful ways, and for building resilience during lean periods. This includes a 60 Decibels implemented impact study on potato farmers which showed that between 47-71% of farmers saw their crop production improve and between 16-49% of farmers saw an improved ability to save attributable to Arifu [1]. 

So what’s next? We have launched and are part of over four large scale impact evaluations, including at least two randomized controlled trials, across three countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, covering merchants, farmers, and youth [2]. The projects will reach well over 600,000 learners to further inform the precision of our Learning Scores prediction strength towards behavior change, product and service utilization, generation of leads for partners, and understand whether outcomes may have improved for learners. 

We are continuously looking for new partnerships to refine our Learning Scores and to build research projects that can help inform and further our vision for how we can leverage predictive analytics, as one tool, to drive our impact and drive the goals of our partners. 

Footnotes
  1. A significant portion of farmers who responded to this survey had not seen improvements in their production since they had not harvested their crop yet. To unpack this we are conducting a follow-up survey one year since the original study.
  2. These projects are in partnership with Google.org, the World Bank, Government of Kenya, Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth, and UC Berkeley among other renowned organizations.

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Articles Impact Videos Webinars

Power of mobile learning: How to digitally reach your target audience in Nigeria

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By Andrew Thiongo

Arifu’s mission to impact the lives of people from low income communities is set to expand into Nigeria following the launch of our WhatsApp channel on the 9th of September 2020. The launch took place during a Nigeria focussed webinar that centred on the power of mobile learning and how organizations could leverage Arifu’s chatbot to reach their target audience in Nigeria. The webinar also featured a presentation and case study from one of our partners – IITA’s Akilimo App.

During the webinar, attendants had the opportunity to learn about Arifu’s different information dissemination platforms. Arifu’s solution is available through SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram. The panellists were able to share insights about the benefits and limitations of using the different chat platforms to enable partners to reach their specific target audiences. Here are some of the factors for potential partners to consider when using Arifu’s different chat platforms:

SMS Platform

Arifu’s SMS platform has a wider reach compared to other chat platforms since it caters to feature phone users as well as smartphone users. The SMS platform is especially beneficial to learners from low income communities because they can access insightful information without owning a smartphone or being able to access the internet free of charge. The onboarding process on SMS can be done through an invitation message or also through typing in a code word such as “Arifu”, this prompts the Arifu chatbot to share the content menu with the learner. The learner is then able to engage with Arifu’s different content modules on financial literacy, business management, good agricultural practices as well as health and safety content. Some of the drawbacks of using the SMS platform are that the message delivery timeline is a bit slower compared to chat applications, there is no rich media to enhance customer experience and the partner may incur monthly shortcode costs as well as cost per SMS charges. All in all, the Arifu SMS platform is greatly beneficial to partner companies seeking to target people from underserved communities especially in rural areas.

Facebook Messenger

Arifu’s Facebook Messenger platform provides a low-cost delivery option for partner organizations and the Facebook Messenger chatbot response is much faster compared to SMS. Facebook ads can also be utilized by the partners to increase lead generation and to also zero in on their target audience through demographics made available on Facebook. The platform is also available on the web-based messenger as well as the Facebook Messenger app. It also comes with rich media enhancements, is easy to navigate and the integration process only requires a simple API integration. 

WhatsApp

As a chat platform, WhatsApp has a wide reach and it also has rich media features that also enable users to share images, videos and audio files. The Arifu WhatsApp channel enables learners to form WhatsApp groups and share their location as well. The rich media capabilities enable learners to interact with picture illustrations and videos which help make the learning process fun and more engaging. Partners will however incur costs such as monthly active user costs, cost of sending out push messages and the integration process is done by a 3rd party business API partner.

IITA’s Akilimo App

IITA’s Akilimo App is a service tailored toward provision of agronomic advice to cassava farmers. The content on the app focuses on different use cases such as intercropping, fertilizer recommendations, good planting practices as well as business management and financial literacy content provided by Arifu. The app provides farmers with a single brand user experience that links them to Akilimo’s products as well as offering advisory services to learners based on their GPS location. Arifu’s partnership with Akilimo has enabled the organization to leverage the benefits of the different platforms mentioned previously. Through SMS, the Arifu chatbot has recreated some of the app’s features and made Akilimo available to farmers who use feature phones. The content is available in different languages such as English, Pydgin and Yoruba, this makes the learning process easier for the farmers who can interact with the content in their preferred language.

By partnering with Arifu, our partners can assess which of the above-mentioned chat platforms best helps them advance their products and services to their target audience. Whichever of the solutions they opt to use, Arifu’s guarantee is that the partner will benefit from having a highly scalable and cost-effective tool that will increase outreach. Arifu will also increase awareness about their products and services as well as providing insightful data analytics that will help inform product development and innovation geared towards meeting the needs of the learners. A partnership with Arifu will enable our partners in Nigeria to witness the power of mobile learning as has been the case with all our partners across the African continent.

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MAINTAINING AGRI-EXTENSION IN TIMES OF COVID-19 AND BEYOND

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By Stephanie Pownall

Evidently, Covid-19 has had a crippling effect on the overall global economy impacting several sectors in both developed and developing economies. In developing economies,the pandemic has contributed to a large scale cash crunch in the region’s agriculture sector leading to overstressing food supply chains with bottlenecks in farm labour, processing, transport and logistics, as well as momentous shifts in demand. The OECD supports the argument of Covid-19 posing a threat on food security to the poorest countries whose agricultural systems are more labor intensive. While the impacts of Covid-19 still unfold,  there is a need for a more resilient information system to support farmers to ensure farm productivity, incomes and food security. 

Factually, and as supported by IFPRI, the agricultural extension (agri-extension) services play a crucial role in boosting agricultural productivity, increasing food security, improving rural livelihoods and promoting agriculture as an engine of pro-poor economic growth. In Sub saharan Africa, as alluded to by Mercy Corps AFA, the agri-extension services are largely  underfunded and limited in scope with one extension officer per two thousand farmers, challenging the conventional extension models to its very core. In normal scenarios as well, agri- extension faces challenges in navigating large distances, poor infrastructure and low rural population density implying high costs and low per unit returns and Covid-19 has only aggravated this issue.  

Now more than ever, farmers are in need of support and relevant information on good agricultural practices, inputs and markets to enable them to sustain and develop resilient agricultural practices to ensure food security. This situation is challenging the agricultural community to explore alternatives that not only provide a quick fix to issues amplified by Covid-19 but also provide a long term supplement or alternative to the conventional in-person  agriculture extension models. This is where digital models like Arifu can come in and provide a last mile personalised low cost and highly scalable interactive tool.

Mobile technology advancements are creating opportunities for agri-stakeholders to continue agri extension remotely during Covid-19 while also providing insights on feasibility of exploring digital extension as a way forward. Some of the reasons why businesses are gravitating towards digital transformation include; 1) digital extension as low cost and highly scalable tool with a potential to reach thousands of smallholder farmers with as low as 3$ per farmer as an annual cost, 2) it enables continuation and follow through learning where farmers can go back to the significant and relevant points of learning for action and, 3) facilitates businesses critical data analytics that is imperative for developing strategies of service delivery. 

Arifu’s innovative platform enables small holder farmers to learn about good agricultural practices, agriculture inputs offered by Arifu’s partners, access to finance and other relevant information while also providing agri businesses a platform to capture insights directly from the smallholder farmers via rich data analytics,  surveys and other tools  for customizing service delivery. Arifu’s platform is compatible with both, the smart phones and feature phones overcoming the digital divide in the region. Using channels like SMS and smartphone applications like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram, Arifu is able to provide cutting edge opportunities to both learners and partners. Arifu’s success lies largely in the way it develops and packages digital content. Arifu uses design thinking principles to generate and disseminate information. The design process focuses on the partners’ business needs and provides a solution that resonates best with its learners creating the desired behavior change and impact. The content is contextualized using text and rich media for application which goes through a series of in-person testing and quality control. Arifu also provides partners the ability to digitise content themselves through using Arifu’s expertise. To reinforce the impact, 60 decibels and Arifu ran a study on farmers undergoing training using Arifu’s platform earlier in 2020. This study was conducted on KCB’s Mobigrow platform farmers to understand whether the farmers felt the content available on the Arifu platform was useful to them and how it impacted their livelihoods and some of the main findings of the study enumerate the following:

  • 57% farmers saw an improvement in income
  • 47% farmers saw an improvement in production
  • 35% farmers perceived improved quality of life
  • 26% farmers perceived an increase in the money earned due to an increase in the volume sold

In Kenya, agriculture contributes to 57% of employment; very similar to other developing countries, and supporting farmers and businesses to interact directly during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond is one of Arifu’s major priorities. Arifu and similar solutions enable companies to sustain and improve farm livelihoods by making relevant information on good agricultural practices and entrepreneurial skills to help farmers increase their incomes for better financial security. If you’d like to get in touch with us and learn more about Arifu’s value proposition, please email us at pownall@arifu.com or sood@arifu.com.

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Business Daily Article: When essential farming skills are just an SMS away

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Arifu CEO Craig Heintzman discusses Arifu’s impact on farmers in article published by Kenya’s Nation Media Group – Business Daily

To read this article click here

 

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How to Maintain a Healthy Portfolio during Covid-19: Invest in your Customers

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It has been a difficult year for most of us financially. The covid-19 pandemic has affected many businesses and has left many people furloughed, 30% or more reductions in pay or in some cases unpaid leave. The International Labour Organization, in a recent article, estimates that about 25 million people globally could become unemployed with the loss of income as high as USD 3.4 trillion globally. In Kenya alone, the labour ministry estimates a loss of 342,300 jobs since April with 133,657 of those being formal jobs and about half a  million employees  being sent on unpaid leave. 

Financial institutions are not immune to the adverse effects of this pandemic. Some of the pandemic aggravated challenges include:

  • low loan repayment rates from customers and reduced agent/customer relation due to mobility restrictions
  • policy changes leading to  reduced interest rates
  • restricted movement of field staff and agents 

Given these challenges, financial institutions are now pushed to rethink their strategies and find remote solutions using technology to overcome the adverse effects of business disruptions caused by Covid-19. To maintain a healthy loan portfolio, the financial service industry should consider supporting the financial wellbeing of their customers to reach a win-win. At Arifu, we have seen great success and ROI for our partners that are investing in building customer financial capacity.

A case in point is Arifu’s partnership with Vodacom in Tanzania, where MPawa users were provided with interactive mobile training via SMS on topics such as savings, loans and product knowledge. A study conducted by CGAP found that customers that accessed at least 10 messages in the Arifu training had:

  • 8x increase in savings deposits
  • 20% increase in average loan size
  • And 9 day sooner first payment of loans

To read more about this project, click here. 

Financial institutions can derive value from investing in the upskilling of their customers on topics such as adopting better financial management practices, diversifying their incomes and finding innovative ways to combat the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic at an individual and household level. The medium and long term outcome of promoting better financial management practices is seeing an increase in customer repayment rates and a healthier bottom line.

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An update from our CCO

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MANDEEP BIRDI

Greetings readers.

As the new and first CCO of Arifu, I take immense pleasure in announcing the launch of our Arifu Whatsapp channel, which launched in early August and is continuously being updated with more and more content in collaboration with some of our partners.

Social media messaging accounted for around 40% of user activity among a vast sample base of 15,000 tracked apps and three different WhatsApp mod versions were among the ten most used messaging apps according to analysis based on anonymously logged smartphone activity tracked by Caribou Data’s research app on users’ phones, with their permission.

As of July 2020, WhatsApp has topped over 2 billion users. The platform is particularly ubiquitous in the Global South, especially in countries with unreliable internet and low average incomes and local entrepreneurs are not only using Whatsapp for personal messaging but also selling their products.

Source: Statista

As an example, I can order fish from a Mombasa fisher using WhatsApp and even though I tried to convince the merchant to consider an online e-commerce website, he politely declined on the basis that he has generated sufficient orders all via WhatsApp. In his own words “WhatsApp is already there,” Ricardo says. “So it’s the easiest way to reach somebody.”

I also foresee that with companies such as KaiOS and Safaricom’s, there will be a massive increase in the growth of smartphones in Africa. In recent news a few days old, Safaricom in a unique partnership with Google has launched a new product where customers can now access a brand new 4G-enabled smartphone by paying as low as KES20 daily for the devices. Safaricom will now give qualifying customers more accessible access to the internet through their world-first initiative dubbed Lipa Mdogo Mdogo in partnership with Android, Google’s operating system for mobile. This initiative will allow qualifying customers access to the internet and the world of possibilities through a smartphone that they can pay-as-they-use on a daily or weekly basis which will only increase the use of data messaging apps such as WhatsApp.

So in summary, I am delighted that we now have the ability for our learners to be able to learn through any of our diverse channels: iSMS, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and Telegram. We look forward to continuous innovation both in terms of channels as well as expanding our content library to keep learners engaged and create an impact for every learner that interacts with Arifu.

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My 7 weeks since joining Arifu: Stephanie Pownall

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It’s been 7 weeks since I joined Arifu and I’d like to take a moment to reflect on my experience thus far. Being a recent college graduate, I was overwhelmed with the excitement to get this opportunity to work at a cutting edge impact business. To me, Arifu offers an excellent opportunity to apply my academic knowledge and build practical professional skills. 

Why did I join Arifu you ask? Firstly, I am keen to gain some experience in the agriculture technology space as it helps me combine my keen interest in agriculture and helps me explore infinite applications of technology.  Undoubtedly,  Arifu was the perfect fit for me as it leverages the power of technology to bring relevant information to those that need it the most; vulnerable communities that are challenged by information asymmetry to achieve opportunity and earn livelihoods. As part of my BA in economics program at The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, I wrote my degree thesis on the correlation between training and productivity in the agricultural sector, specifically for smallholder farmers. The geographical focus of the study was Kiambu in central Kenya and through my research, I discovered that there is a significant information gap in rural areas compared to urban areas such as Nairobi due to smartphone penetration implying digital divide.  This insight and challenge made me more curious to dive deeper and learn further about some of the market based solutions that are potentially solving this issue. My ecosystem research led me to Arifu and I’m grateful to get the opportunity to work in the Business development unit as an associate.

Upon starting with Arifu and learning about its product and services offerings, I realised the importance of partnerships’ function at Arifu. Further understanding, these partnerships have helped us reach over 1.4 million learners/users across Sub Saharan Africa while providing a low cost and a highly scalable information dissemination solution for business partners. Arifu’s interactive capabilities enable our partners to gain insights and bridge the information gap between partners and the last mile. Furthermore, I had always hoped to work within a company that is driven by making a positive impact across the board in our society. Changing lives and helping people thrive! I wanted to be a part of that.

My first day at Arifu typically felt like one does when they try something new. I was nervous, anxious, a little scared but mostly excited and looking forward to getting started with this new journey. It was a foreign environment with all new people and systems to me. The highlight of my first day was knowing that I had someone new just like me, Andrew Thiong’o, whom I didn’t know much about but got along really well with. He was equally recently recruited into the team and the support we offered each other from orientation and the introductory tasks assigned to us aided in quicker adoption into the working environment . It was comforting knowing that I was not alone in this new journey or environment because we assisted each other in getting settled into the unfamiliar system.

As a BD associate my responsibilities involve assisting the team with  building technical and strategic partnerships. Specifically, my day to day job includes communicating with potential partners, providing information about Arifu, writing proposals and tracking work. Moreover, the position means interacting with everyone in the BD team and being of assistance wherever and whenever they need. Being assigned tasks in different aspects has personally been a great learning experience thus far. It’s taught me to be quicker on my feet, encouraged me to take more initiative when getting things done plus think outside the box. My colleagues have played a huge part in helping me learn what business development truly entails and how they manage all their responsibilities beats me!

I know that Arifu is truly going to be a wonderful experience as we go along and the learning process will be ongoing. Being with the Arifu family aligns perfectly with my goals to gain the necessary agtech experience, travel the world as well as help bring positive change to our communities at large. I’m excited for the future opportunities and I hope to make a positive difference in the world as my colleagues, as well as our partners are. A step at a time!

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My first 7 weeks at Arifu: Andrew Thiongo

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Getting a new job is always a great feeling. Your emotions vary from happiness, anxiety, anticipation and even a fear of the unknown. These were some of the emotions I experienced when I received my job offer letter from Arifu in May earlier on this year. From the onset, I knew that Arifu would be a great  fit for me and 7 weeks in, I have been able to appreciate how amazing the company is and the role it is playing in making the world a better place. 

Before we get too far, let me explain what Arifu is and how the company operates. Arifu is a digital advisor and content marketplace which can be accessed free of charge on feature phones via a short- code of 22744 (in Kenya) and on WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger on smartphones. Arifu offers insightful and impactful content on good agricultural practices, financial literacy, business management and even youth employability skills, free of charge. We even have content on covid-19 which addresses signs and symptoms to be aware of and also prevention measures like learning how to make DIY facemasks and hand sanitizer.The content is action oriented and focuses on creating the desired behavior change amongst the learners who are able to utilize this information and make great strides in improving their lives.   

We also help our partners to increase awareness about their products and services. My manager @Ritika has an awesome way of describing Arifu as a Netflix of content because learners are able to access a variety of insightful information on different subject matters from our partners.

Reasons for Joining Arifu

I joined Arifu because Arifu’s main aim is to positively impact people’s lives through education. My educational background has enabled me to fully understand how learning new skills and acquiring more knowledge can help you achieve your goals in life. I also joined Arifu because I wanted to challenge myself as a business development professional and find ways on how Arifu and its cutting edge interactive technology can add value to businesses that have direct linkages with the communities. I’d like to learn more about how technology plays a role in agriculture, finance, energy and even youth employability training which is an area I especially feel that we can contribute a lot. Embracing digital learning through platforms like Arifu can help boost economic development in emerging markets such as sub saharan Africa, India and other regions where digitally disseminating  knowledge on good agricultural practices, business and financial management and other impactful information can help improve living standards for people in underserved communities. These are some of the top pull factors that got me to join Arifu. The next section will cover details of my first day Arifu, my responsibilities and how I think Arifu fits well with my long term career goals. 

My first day at Arifu

My first day at Arifu was a memorable day for sure. I had been eagerly waiting for this moment ever since I signed the offer letter which was immediately an hour after I received it. The day started off with an email inviting me for a team lunch and receiving lots of emails from the Arifu family welcoming me as one of their own. The team lunch had to take place virtually though, because the entire company was working from home because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  It was a lot of fun getting to know the team and also answering some of the questions that the team inquired about me. Some of the questions they had included what my interests and hobbies are and what book I was currently reading.  

What are my responsibilities

My role at Arifu is to help the organization generate more revenue and seek out more opportunities to expand learning to millions of learners. My specific responsibilities at Arifu involve assisting the team with stitching technical and strategic partnerships with potential partners, building and maintaining successful relationships with existing clients and prospects, attending networking events, conferences and webinars.  My function leads to expanding Arifu’s network through attending networking events,  writing insightful articles and tracking work. 

What am I learning?

In my first 7 weeks at Arifu I have been able to learn a lot. The work culture that the company has, encourages us to learn on the job and to also become innovative and provide solutions that can enable further growth and development of the organization. One of the things I have learnt about Arifu is that our services such as content based marketing, training and providing real time data analytics about our learners to our partners helps our partners to tailor their strategies towards meeting the needs of the target audience. I am also learning  about the relationship between technology and other sectors such as agriculture, financial services, employability, energy amongst others. Working at Arifu has also shown me that a phone is much more than just a device, but it is also a medium that can be used to share very insightful and life changing information. I have also come to understand that education and information can be a great enabler in the fight against poverty across the globe. If more people continue to embrace learning and implementation of new skills, then we can grow to become more self-sufficient and independent as well.

How does Arifu fit into my long term – goal?

Arifu fits into my long-term goal because the company has provided me with an opportunity to learn as much as I can about how we can positively impact the lives of people in our society. I always believe that in everything we do we should always strive to positively impact those around us and to leave the world a better place than we found it. In the next 5 years, my career goal is to grow as a  business development professional and help Arifu secure strategic partnerships with more companies across the globe that are looking to positively impact the underserved people in different communities. Arifu provides a platform whereby I can be a change agent and help to socially and economically empower people from low income communities across this wonderful continent and across different parts of the world. My aim is to do more to effect change through education because as a direct beneficiary of education, I would love for others to embrace and enjoy the benefits of education and Arifu provides the perfect way to achieve this goal.

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