Access to finance is a key challenge holding back smallholder farmers. This finance gap represents a business opportunity ripe for innovation. Data-sharing partnerships hold the potential for improving access to finance and delivering other important services to smallholder farmers that could improve their commercial performance and eventually create a valuable asset class.
As a part of its technology practice, IDH, in partnership with Dalberg Design, conducted an innovation launchpad with Barry Callebaut and Advans Group in Côte d’Ivoire to identify how the organizations can optimize data sharing to enhance service delivery to farmers. The innovation launchpad identified common frameworks and solutions where they could partner to optimize data collection and the delivery of financial services to farmers and cooperatives in the cocoa value chain in Côte d’Ivoire.