Bringing Value Chain-based Financial Services to Irish Potato Farmers in Rwanda

We are excited to announce a new partnership with SPARK on a two-year Irish potato value chain-financing project that will reach over 100,000 Rwandans. The goal of the project is to increase the income of Irish potato farmers and to promote fair business relations among its supply chain actors.

SPARK has been awarded the grant through Access to Finance Rwanda, funded by DFID, Sweden, USAID, the MasterCard Foundation and KfW. N-Frnds is the services and software provider for the project.

SPARK will spearhead project activities to enhance productivity, income and job opportunities through increased access to financial services for smallholder farmers. Working with the government and other strategic partners, the project will provide Irish potato cooperatives with increased access to cost-efficient financial and informational services to enhance co-operative’s market position and increase digital financial literacy among co-operatives and farmers.

N-Frnds has been working in Rwanda since 2014, providing government services to Rwanda’s 12 million citizens and small businesses through the Irembo platform and working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Services (MINAGRI) on a USAID-funded program to utilize ICT to increase the productivity and income levels of smallholder farmers across the country.

Over 15,000 Rwandan farmers are already using N-Frnds’ mAgri platform to access crop, weather and price information and to interact via chat and group chat features, all through their existing mobile phones without the need for mobile data or the Internet. N-Frnds has also been active in digitizing value chains. N-Frnds digitized the milk collection at the cooperative level, providing nationwide data on milk to MINAGRI.

N-Frnds will build upon their mAgri platform to create a customized solution that fits the needs of Irish potato cooperatives and farmers, and that seamlessly fits into the bank’s financial systems. N-Frnds will create a management information system to connect buyers and suppliers, disseminate mobile informational and financial services, and provide real time data collection and analytics.

SPARK develops higher education and entrepreneurship so that young, ambitious people are empowered to lead their post-conflict societies into prosperity. SPARK is determined to increase the number of sustainable jobs and economic prospects for youth in post-conflict regions through the improvement of higher education and development of the local private sector. Special attention is given to marginalised groups, including women, returning refugees and IDPs. http://www.spark-online.org/

N-Frnds’ sophisticated cloud-based SaaS platform digitizes financial and business processes to reach the base of the pyramid. Based on groundbreaking technology, protected by 21 patents, our platform is easily adaptable, swiftly deployable and can be accessed from any device. Even without mobile data. www.nfrnds.com