The 11th ICT4D Conference brings together public, private and civil society organizations from across the humanitarian and international development community.

Participants share how they’ve used innovations in technology to increase the impact of their work. Highly interactive and hands-on, the conference attracts a diverse audience of technical advisors, executives, and others who offer a range of practical insights on applying technology to development, humanitarian, and conservation challenges.

This year’s conference offers a unique, hands-on opportunity to explore how people around the world are using ICT4D to:

• Enhance program quality
• Improve decision-making
• Increase impact
• Accelerate progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

Nathan’s Rajiv Nair will present at the conference on the following topic:

Market Development (MADE) for Northern Ghana is a DFID/UKAid funded project that uses the Making Markets Work for The Poor (M4P) approach to increase incomes and yields for smallholder farmers (SHFs) and small rural enterprises. The project is being implemented by Nathan Associates. Agribusinesses in Northern Ghana provide inputs to smallholder farmers (SHF) on credit. These transactions are largely recorded on paper. Maintaining the records is laborious and it is difficult for businesses to develop meaningful insights such as credit-worthiness of farmers, the performance of inputs, among others. SHFs do not receive a record of the transactions leading to disputes during harvest.  Additionally, agribusinesses often do not have an off-taker for their produce. They are also unable to access finance as these businesses seldom have the paperwork to successfully apply for a loan with financial institutions.

M-Access is a tool that brings multiple functionalities together to solve the above issues. It allows agri-businesses to record information through a mobile application without internet while providing SHFs with digital records. M-Access registers farmers with Digital IDs and thus provides potential off-takers with transparency across the supply chain. Moreover, M-Access also allows businesses to extract relevant documentation to apply for a loan at the click of a button. Since M-Access also uses GIS, the vision is to use AI to generate customized insights for farmers in the future.

About Rajiv

Rajiv Nair is a Technology and Innovation Lead at Nathan Associates Inc. and is based out of Nathan’s London office. Rajiv is a seasoned management and international development consultant having led several projects in the ICT4D area. Rajiv is leading the development of M-Access tool in Ghana. Rajiv is also currently leading a project for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to evaluate the economic benefits of digital ID solutions in developing countries. Other ICT4D projects include evaluating blockchain solutions in trade for USAID and impact of 3D printing on logistics for the World Bank. Prior to joining Nathan, Rajiv worked as a senior strategy consultant for Arthur D. Little in the Middle East and later in South East Asia on 20+ public and private sector projects. Rajiv holds an MA in Development Economics from the Fletcher School, MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and BE in Information Technology from Mumbai University

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