This is the second article in a series about a prepayment product that IDEO and Mercy Corps Ventures have been building over the last few months in conjunction with Sokowatch, an informal retail logistics platform. We launched a prepayment product that enabled Sokowatch’s micro-retailers (‘merchants’) in Rwanda to make prepayments…

Over the last several months, IDEO and Mercy Corps Ventures have been piloting a prepayment product in conjunction with Sokowatch, an informal retail logistics platform. For more background, you can read our earlier post introducing the pilot here. We were interested in two questions: What might lead an informal retailer…

Interview by Ann Kim, edited by Eva Hoffmann and Abi Steinberg — This is one in a series of blogs about a prepayment product that IDEO and Mercy Corps Ventures have been building over the last few months in conjunction with Sokowatch, an informal retailer logistics platform. We launched a prepayment product that enabled Sokowatch’s retailers in Rwanda to make prepayments into…

Mugisha is always concerned about whether or not he’ll have enough cash to pay for his weekly inventory delivery. Some weeks he has enough. But in other weeks he depends on credit from suppliers. Mugisha finds it tough to account for his personal and business expenses. And without an easy…

The Promise of Tangible, Flexible and Sustainable Services — Co-authored with Sushmita Meka FIBR is a learning-driven program that seeks to discover how digitizing micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME) and low-income households can increase their access to financial products and other services. Our hypothesis is that the digitizations of business ledgers and household usage of services can be…

A Prepayment Model to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of Providing Water as Household-Level Service — You’ve probably heard about how PAYGo is revolutionizing the solar energy sector. But what can PAYGo do for water? FIBR is partnering with Safe Water Network in Ghana to explore just that. Safe Water Network is ​a ​nonprofit ​operating ​sustainable ​water ​micro-utilities ​that serve ​one ​million ​customers ​globally. ​The ​company…

An Immersive Experience with Informal Retailers in Africa — Produced and Developed by: Abi Steinberg, Videographer and Director: Adam Wiseman Previously, we wrote about a day in the life of small merchants in Africa and what it is like to manage a small shop, known as a duka, in Africa. Typically, they work seven days a week, over 15…