Almost one billion people globally face hunger and are unable to get enough food to meet their dietary needs. 165 million children (26% of children under 5 years) are stunted which is associated with under nutrition.[1] With one billion people globally employed in agriculture[2], improvements in agriculture quality and yield will most likely result in positive impact on the under nutrition crisis currently faced.
How is mAgri tackling under nutrition?
GSMA Mobile for Development has always strived to facilitate and support provision of mobile services to the underserved, while identifying opportunities for mobile to enable social and economic development. Therefore, it comes as no surprise the mAgri team has set out to help solve one of the largest global challenges – under nutrition. The new mAgri Challenge Fund, launched in February 2014, is our next big challenge. Supported by the UK Government and in collaboration with the GSMA mHealth programme, the mNutrition Initiative aims to improve nutrition for the poor as a result of behaviour change promoted by accessible mobile-based services delivered at scale through sustainable business models.
What are we aiming to achieve?
The mNutrition Initiative has laid out three key impacts that we aim to achieve so as to reach our vision of increased nutrition for the poor. These impacts include improvements in:
- Household diet diversity
- Agriculture-based output (improved yields)
- Agriculture-based income
By 2017, we envisage the mAgri projects, supported by the mAgri Challenge Fund, will be able to demonstrate significant behavioural changes that could contribute to improving the nutritional status of the users. So how will we know if we’ve achieved these impacts? The mNutrition Initiative has set out a number of measures for success for GSMA mAgri in achieving the goal of improved nutrition. These measures of success include the following improvements recorded among those active users who are acting on information and advice:
- 20% of registered households consume at least 4 food groups as a result of acting on information from mAgri services
- 50% of registered households report a 25% increase in agricultural productivity as a result on acting on information and advice from mAgri services
- 50% of registered households report an increase income of 20% as a result on acting on information from mAgri services
How are we going to achieve this?
The mAgri Challenge Fund is designed to support the implementation of mAgri services dedicated to providing agricultural and nutritional advisory information to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Through the information and advice provided by these services, the projects will aim to influence specific behavioural changes that will impact the nutritional status of the users’ households. We envisage that by 2017 25% of active registered users of mobile agriculture services will be able to demonstrate behavioural changes around either one of critical knowledge domains:
- new agricultural technologies that are nutrition sensitive
- new agricultural technologies and practices to improve agricultural productivity
- new post-harvest technologies and practices to improve availability and quality of agricultural produce
By providing relevant and actionable information on verified agricultural practices and nutrition-sensitive agricultural advice in combination with information on climate and markets, users are able to make more informed decisions that often lead to improvements in productivity along with improved quality of produce, and as a result – more consumption and increased consumption of diverse food groups in the household.
With improved agricultural productivity comes improved income. Greater income realised by the farmer can result in greater access to diverse, nutritious foods for farmers as improvements in their spending capacity is realised.
By providing nutrition-sensitive information in conjunction with agricultural information, farmers are also able to make more informative decisions on their food consumption impacting their overall nutritional status. It is this relevant and actionable information that mAgri services provide that creates behavioural changes in its users and thus can be attributed to improving their nutrition.
How we will ensure behavioural change in users occurs?
Like any project, there are key success factors that need to be considered in order to achieve its objectives. For each mAgri service, the key success factors to influence adoption of the service and subsequent behavioural changes include a user-friendly design, engaging content relevant to the user, affordable pricing structure and accessibility of the overall mobile solution to the user.
With the support of the GSMA mAgri team, six projects supported by the Challenge Fund, will receive up to £325,000 to launch or scale mAgri services in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. In addition, the mAgri team will provide technical assistance, share best practices and learnings from previous projects and establish a collaborative environment to develop key partnerships with public and private organisations. The projects will also receive support from a global content partner CABI to assist with ensuring content is relevant, reliable and tailored to the market. A service design partner will also provide on-the-ground support to each project assisting in developing the service appropriate to the users and their needs.
This is a new and exciting opportunity for us to support in-demand mobile services for rural population, and we surely will learn a lot during the next 24 months of implementation. Stay tuned for new insights and analysis that will come out of our new projects.
If you want to keep up-to-date with our progress on combating under nutrition globally, sign up to our newsletter, follow @GSMAmAgri, or attend our events.
[1] World Bank 2008 World Development Report http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDRS/0,contentMDK:23092267~pagePK:478093~piPK:477627~theSitePK:477624,00.html
[2] International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2008)