{"id":21907,"date":"2015-12-16T06:24:37","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T06:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/clinton-development-initiative-visa-partnership\/"},"modified":"2015-12-16T06:24:26","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T06:24:26","slug":"clinton-development-initiative-visa-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/clinton-development-initiative-visa-partnership\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton Development Initiative, Visa partnership links farmers in Rwanda to digital payments"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The Clinton Development Initiative (CDI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, and Visa have today announced a partnership that will enable farmers in Rwanda to digitally conduct business transactions through connecting individual farmers and cooperatives with banks, agrodealers, retailers, commodity processers, produce buyers, and other producers, creating a digital payments ecosystem.
\n}<\/p>\n

These connections will help improve farmers\u2019 financial security and empower them economically to make purchases with greater knowledge and ease.<\/p>\n

CDI\u2019s work in Rwanda focuses on helping farmers improve their livelihoods through better training, improved connection to markets and inputs, and stronger linkages between farmers, producers, and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector.
\nThis work, coupled with Visa\u2019s expertise in global electronic payment systems and promoting financial literacy, will allow farmers to take a larger role in agricultural financing.<\/p>\n

Visa\u2019s solution ensures a secure and efficient way of transacting by using digital payment, thus reducing the need for cash within the value chain.
\nWith the dramatic increase in mobile phone usage in sub-Saharan Africa, including Rwanda, the new offering removes the burden and inefficiencies which come from handling large amounts of cash and brings thousands of unbanked smallholder farmers into the formal financial sector through the use of mobile platforms.<\/p>\n

Building on projects currently being implemented by CDI, the digital payments ecosystem will connect agribusiness stakeholders, allowing farmers to compete equitably in economic markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work to empower farmers in Rwanda \u2013 giving them the knowledge and resources to improve their yields, improve their profitability, and improve their livelihoods,\u201d said Walker Morris, CEO of the Clinton Development Initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new offering with Visa will improve the financial stability and security of these farmers. Farmers will have the resources and training to take advantage of digital payments, connecting them to Rwanda\u2019s growing economy.\u201dSaid Stephen Kehoe, Senior Vice President for Global Financial Inclusion at Visa: \u201cThe main barrier to increasing the yield of individual farmers is lack of access to working capital. A secondary concern is making sure they get paid more quickly for their harvests. We think we can solve both sides of this equation if we both digitize the payment process and educate farmers, which is what this partnership with CDI is designed to achieve.\u201d <\/p>\n

This effort takes advantage of Visa\u2019s development of a broader payment landscape\u2013 for example merchants who accept payments and consumers who make payments, as well as its partnership with banks in country and beyond. Through these connections, CDI\u2019s smallholder farmer training and market access program will help farmers adapt to digital payments to increase their money management and business skills while establishing a strong foundation for economic development.<\/p>\n

The partnership will consist of a two-phased program, starting with a pilot in Kayonza and Gatsibo districts, which are located in Rwanda\u2019s Eastern Province. In the first phase, one farmers\u2019 cooperative will receive financial literacy training and have access to and test a Visa product through which they will receive and make value-chain payments. <\/p>\n

This will enable CDI and Visa to learn how to best understand the deeply felt and unmet needs of the farmers, which will inform scale-up efforts in the second phase. Coupled with in-depth impact analysis, the pilot will help lay the foundation on which CDI and Visa roll-out the most fitting financial services to CDI\u2019s farmer network in Rwanda.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The Clinton Development Initiative (CDI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, and Visa have today announced a partnership that will enable farmers in Rwanda to digitally conduct business transactions through connecting individual farmers and cooperatives with banks, agrodealers, retailers, commodity processers, produce buyers, and other producers, creating a digital payments ecosystem. } These connections will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070891,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21907.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21907.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21907.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21907.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21907.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21907.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21907"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21907"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}