Presentation by Md. Asad-Ur-Rahman Nile of Katalyst, 17 May 2012, in the Bangladesh country session at the WSIS Forum 2012.

1. ICT and Agriculture : Benefiting
the Poor
Presented by
Md. Asad-Ur-Rahman Nile
Senior Business Consultant
Swisscontact, Katalyst
Geneva, Switzerland
May 2012

2. A real life story
Moharaja Hossain
A 32 year old farmer, from Pantapara village,
Sharsha of Jessore District, with little formal
education.
On average his yearly earning is BDT 50,000
(≈USD 595)
Last season, Moharaj observed that the leaves of
his bitter gourds were curling up. This disease was
gradually spreading and diminishing his gourds.
Within 15 days, approximately 160 Kgs of what
could have been his produces got damaged.
He was unable to find solutions from regular
sources.
Finally after 15days he took the solution from one of the telecentre’s known as
Grameenphone Community Information Centre (GPCIC) and managed to save his
produces. At the end of the season he earned BDT 18000 (USD 214)

3. Content
• Katalyst at a Glance
• ICT & Bangladesh
• ‘The Constraint” and Katalyst Strategy
• Innovations with private sector
– Grameenphone CIC experience
– Banglalink Agri-helpline experience
– Impact
• Lessons Learned
• Way Forward

4. Katalyst at a Glance
Phase I Phase II
Donors • DFID • DFID
• SDC • SDC
• SIDA • CIDA
• The Embassy of Netherlands
Implementers Swisscontact, Swisscontact,
GTZ-IS GTZ-IS
Duration • Oct ’02 –15 Mar ’08 • 16 Mar ’08 – 15 Mar ’13
Budget • US$ 20 million • US$ 45 million
Line Ministry Ministry of Commerce Ministry of Commerce

5. Katalyst Approach
Supporting
Functions
Information
Govt. Informing &
Communication
Private
Sector
Demand Core Supply
Informal Setting & Business
Regulations Enforcing Rules Membership
network Informal Rules Organizations
& Norms
Standards Laws
Rules
Source: The Springfield Centre

6. The Constraints
ADVANCED MARKETING PROCESS
Limited access to Lack of appropriate ICT-
ICT tools and based service offers
technology targeting rural sectors
Growth
Potential of
The Farmers
Lack of appropriate
policy support for
growth of ICT
Low awareness and
based services
usage of among
rural people
Service Delivery
Lack of adequate skill set among
service providers

7. Katalyst Strategy

8. Partnership with Grameenphone (GP)
Katalyst Grameenphone
• To develop a delivery channel • To create a strong rural presence
• To create a sustainable mechanism • To develop potential touch-points for
for access to technology and products and services
information • To develop the rural segments with
• To develop a private sector led & bundle of Value Added Services (VAS)
commercially viable ecosystem for • To promote data usage in rural areas
accessing agriculture information
Partnership formed

9. The CIC’s
• Grameenphone (GP) branded rural
telecentre
• Franchise model
– GP provides technology, branding
material, training
– Entrepreneur invests in equipments &
establishments
• Standardized
• Bundle of services
– Information services
– IT-enabled services
– Top-up, photography, telco-products
• Commercially motivated entrepreneurs
• Without any subsidy

10. The Ecosystem
• Developing commercial
content provider • Commercial content providers
Katalyst • Capacity building of the developed
service providers
• The channels became efficient in
delivery
• Awareness increased
• Promotion
• Service integration • Number of services increased
GP • Monitoring and advice • Business case strengthened
A sustainable delivery channel to deliver
agriculture information with nationwide outreach

11. Deepening the Impact
• “Now What?”
• More than 18 million farmers
• High & growing tele-density
• High latent demand of information
• Interested private sector partners
• Ecosystem of commercial content providers
needed more opportunities

12. Partnership with Banglalink
Improved
Value added services
performance of for more market
farmers & rural Katalyst Banglalink share in rural
markets
entrepreneurs
Banglalink
Katalyst
Market assessment Branded Value added
service for targeted
Capacity building customers
Content/Service Capacity building of the
development Call Center service
Promotion provider
Demand stimulation and
promotion of VAS

13. The Outcome: Bangallink Agri-helpline 7676
• A call-centre offering only agriculture related
solution
• Commercially operated
• Branded by the second large mobile phone
operator Banglalink
• Commercial content provider, commercial call-
centre
• Human interface not IVR based
• Affordable for the farmers (0.06 USD / Min)

14. Service Delivery Model
Routed to a call
center
Call center agents
receive customers call
Agents provide the
Customers dial a info over phone Agents browse
the database
short code 7676
and finds the
solution
If the information is not available in the database Customer is
called back
Agents take Support team Database is
notes of queries gathers info updated

15. The Impact
• There are more than 500 CIC’s in rural areas of Bangladesh
– The average footfall in each CIC is 100 per day
– Cumulative access outreach from March 2008 - June 2011 is 1.5
million+ only from the Grameenphone
– Cumulative benefit outreach from March 2008 - June 2011 is 600,000+
• Impact of Banglalink Agriculture helpline from Jan’11 to Dec’11
– Relevant calls 32,904
– Repeat calls 22% (7,219)
– Asia Mobile Awards 2009, organized by the GSM Association
– Nomination in The World Communication Award 2009 and The Global
Mobile Award 2010.
Source: Katalyst Annual Report 2011, Banglalink & Grameenphone

16. Agriculture Information
• The demand of agriculture information services is low compare to other
services but its growing slowly
• Specialized Agriculture information like online based Fertilizer
Recommendation System has been integrated in both the platforms
• The reasons behind the growing demand of agriculture information
services
– Easily accessible through the operators/entrepreneurs
– Quick service delivery (very crucial in case of disease)
– Possible to take print of the solution
– A wide variety of solutions (crops, fisheries, livestock, poultry, fruits )

17. Challenges Ahead
• Slow adoption among the intended Target group
• Latent demand
• New technology
• Reliability factor
• Revisiting the business case for different key actors
• Harmonization between different projects for optimum
impact at beneficiary level
– Reduce cannibalization
– Increased Synergy

18. Lessons
• Partnering with right large Private Sector (PS) partners
with right commercial incentive
• High Volume-Low margin business model
• Effective service development and delivery process
– Demand led
– Conveniently accessible
• Multi-stakeholder partnership for:
– Taking ride on the core expertise of different actors
– Reduction in cost of doing business and associated risk
– Time efficient implementation

19. Lessons (contd.):
• Role of Government
• Creating conducive policy environment for PS to
perform
– Extend cooperation to PS for developing and
delivering need based services
– Service quality and standardization
– Endorsement and mass promotion of private
sector lead initiatives
• Shift from “service provider” role to “facilitator” role

20. Way Forward
• Changing the “mindset”
• Increase participation of women in availing ICT based
services
• Developing strong role based partnerships with
government organizations
• Advocacy for conducive environment
• Deepening the impact by developing ecosystems

21. Way Forward (contd.)
• Widening the impact by developing right
partnerships
• Increasing specialized agricultural services like
fertilizer recommendation, irrigation
recommendation, soil testing, weather forecasting
etc.
• Introducing mobile fund transfer for benefitting the
farmers
• Facilitating direct market access of the farmers

22. Thank You