Women in Agriculture: a toolkit for mobile services practitioners

Delivering mobile-enabled agricultural services (‘mAgri services’) to women in developing countries is a major market opportunity for the mobile industry that also offers substantial social benefits. The mAgri services market is nascent but growing—GSMA has tracked 106 active, global deployments by mobile network operators (MNOs) and third party providers. Women working in agriculture account for an estimated 556 million potential users globally, but are underserved as a unique customer segment. The GSMA mWomen and mAgri programmes have produced the Mobile Agricultural Services Toolkit as a guide for mobile operators,
other mobile providers, and development practitioners to better serve women in this segment. It includes recommendations and tools for each stage of the product development process, as well as examples of good practices. The products and services in question include value-added services (information, advisory, matchmaking, or other), mobile financial services, and basic services (voice, SMS, and data) delivered via mobile phone. While the focus is broadly on Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, the framework may also be applied to other developing regions.