Wireless Services for Informal Market Traders
Recently Bojan published a blog, which can be read here, introducing the Wireless Mesh Network project which will be implemented in Mozambique during the second half of 2018. The project will provide market vendors with a wireless mesh network that holds tools to upgrade their businesses and digital skills, whilst we build out applications which will integrate their activities into supply chains. Mowoza was the organisation commissioned to carry out the scoping and design sprint. Prior to Bojan coming to Mozambique, our team spent some time meeting several marketplace supervisors and getting a sense of how the women traders in the various marketplaces were communicating with each other; how they were sharing information and their willingness to consume information. At this preliminary phase, we also gauged the municipality support for the traders and whether there is any type of development support that is freely available for the traders.
The formal kick off of the scoping and design sprint involved a visit by the project sponsor and donor to several markets. During these visits we met with several marketplace representatives which included the marketplace supervisor and an informal trade representative who acts as a liaison officer between the formally appointed marketplace supervisor and the trader in the unlikely eventuality of any discords. Since we had briefed the marketplace representatives of our visits, several traders, representing different trade sectors were invited to this meeting. We used this opportunity to get a better understanding of how the traders were using their mobile phones, how much data they were consuming and about their general day-to-day trading activities.
These scoping meetings resulted in the selection of Zimpeto Retalhista marketplace just outside Maputo city as the marketplace where we will implement the wireless mesh network. We based the final selection of a marketplace on the willingness of the traders and marketplace supervisor and trade representative to support such a pilot, on the enthusiasm and eagerness of the traders to become more aware of tools that could potentially increase their productivity and sales; and to overcome a financial barrier that prevented them from consuming more information since data costs are relatively expensive in Mozambique.
The most surprising lesson from the scoping exercise centres on the traders data spend and financial awareness. We interviewed approximately 50 women and the majority indicated that they are spending in excess of 100 meticais per week on data. This amount is significant when considering their profit margins. From this we learnt that the traders’ children use their phones to access the internet, spending many hours and much data on presumably, playing online games and chatting to friends. This raised the question if we could involve the youth to assist with transferring skills across the generations so that vendors can become more digitally literate?
Our second lesson focusses on the traders’ financial awareness and their perception of MPesa as a banking institute. Some of the key questions that we put forward to the vendors related to financial and saving habits; specifically where do they store their savings and what makes them save? While all the vendors make attempts to save a percentage of the income they generate, they do so through informal rotational saving mechanisms, locally known as ‘xitiques’. When we asked which bank they used, they jointly shouted out “MPesa”! MPesa; this is the leading mobile money service in Mozambique which is provided by Vodacom and for millions of Mozambicans consider it to be a bank. Many of the vendors confuse mobile wallet facilities with the services offered by banks. The local office of the International Growth Centre recently published a report highlighting that an important reason for the low levels of financial literacy amongst women can be traced back to low levels of education. Many of these vendors have no more than 5 years of schooling.
Following this scoping exercise, the design phase saw us brainstorming solutions to enable the traders and the youth to use the wireless mesh network as a tool to increase faster communication within the marketplace, to improve their businesses, and as a first point of call for relevant content. We envisage that the Wireless Mesh Network project can be used as a conduit to engage, raise awareness and share knowledge on business topics that can contribute towards the livelihoods of the vendors. Our next steps will involve partnering with interested content providers so as to support the marketplace supervisors, trade representatives, traders in improving trade and their livelihoods.
