Uber’s app lowers barriers to formalization for unorganized taxi industry in Kenya
This interesting article in the Kenyan news made me think about the role that an app like Uber could play in markets where there’s a high proportion of informal & unregulated business activity. As with much technological advancement, resistance comes with change. Mpesa and the internet were once thought to be passing fads and have […]
Mobile Money’s next challenge: Enabling the development of a cashless ecosystem
The latest GSMA State of the Industry report on Mobile Money is out this month and the numbers look great in the developing world. The report frames the industry’s next challenge as the need to grow the platform beyond the basics of airtime purchase and person to person transfer. Here are my concerns, starting with […]
There’s more to informal trade than meets the eye
This photograph captures the way micro entrepreneurs in the informal economy perceive their business. There is more here than meets the eye at the first instance. Note the green logo of the Kenyan mobile money transfer system M-Pesa in the background of the cash transfer taking place, by hand, in the foreground. The customer is […]
Collapsing the sustainable agricultural value chain of commodities with a single tweet
Tony Addison of UNU-Wider, in Helsinki, just tweeted this photograph, expressing his pleasure at seeing Rwandan coffee at his favourite coffee shop, Roastery. I retweeted it and within minutes, Josh Kariuki proudly tweeted that his neighbourhood Gachatha coffee, from Nyeri county in Kenya, was being sold far away in Helsinki, Finland, by name. The next […]
Rwanda launches cashless public transport payments – Will they succeed where Google failed in Kenya?
Public transport is going cashless in Kigali, Rwanda, with smart card payments and mobile money schemes being launched simultaneously with much fanfare. Can Kigali succeed where regional giant Kenya failed a couple of years ago? Nairobi’s attempt to impose cashless payment technologies in public transport (particularly the matatus, ubiquitous white mini buses that ply the […]
Is there a tipping point price for low income customer behavioural change?
When the price of the LPG cylinders dropped significantly earlier this year, it was noticed that increasing numbers of urban lower income customers were purchasing the entry level size of 6kg – seen displayed along the top of the display unit above. “A good number of my customers come from the slum,” said Kinuthia on […]
Can digital currency earn trust in hyper-local rural economies?
One characteristic of rural and informal type micro-economies, is irregular patterns in cash flows and money supply. Mama biashara for instance, finds it hard to replenish stock if business is generally slow within her domain. Even if she could, there is still Mr. boda boda who has to be paid. When he doesn’t get paid, […]
Role of Chamas in informal sector entrepreneurialism in Kenya
Researcher Mary Njeri Kinyanjui shares deep insights from Kenya on how social cooperation and collaboration play an important role in the informal entrepreneur’s business financing strategy. In East Africa, particularly in Kenya, the formation of chama—a Kiswahili word for social group—has helped to enhance group agency and solidarity entrepreneurialism. Individuals collectively and cooperatively form a […]
Marketing the Unbranded: Avocados on the side of the Road
These stickers caught my attention. The only one of a long line of makeshift wooden stalls by the side of a highway in Central Kenya to display what looked like branded avocados. Were they part of some cooperative or horticulture exporter’s leftovers? They turned out to belong to Maude, the ambitious and aspirational market woman […]
African E-Commerce: Successfully Leapfrogging The Metrics of Fail
Postal networks are critical elements of the e-commerce chain, a UN report said, including home postal delivery as an indicator in a new global index to measure countries’ readiness to carry out business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. ~ source By these metrics, countries on the African continent such as Nigeria rank 101st on the global index, far […]
