Digital Pay for Tea Farmers
NGOs introduce digital payment system.
RWANDA
Internet provider Tigo Rwanda has partnered with credit cooperatives (SACCOs), Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR), the Wood Foundation, and the TradeMark East Africa Challenge (TRAC) Fund to offer a digital payment program to pay tea farmers.
More than 10,000 farmers at the Mulindi Tea Factory in Gicumbi and at the Shagasha Tea Factory in Rusizi District will now be able to collect their pay via their phones. Payments to tea farmers have traditionally been very slow but now, once the crop they have harvested has been weighed, it will take only 15 to 20 days for the money to reach them.
This will make farmers’ lives easier and more efficient since they will no longer have to actually go to the credit cooperatives to collect their money and will be able to concentrate more on their tea cultivation activities. Tigo’s longer term aim is to digitalize all its services and to promote a cashless society. Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Rwanda’s Minister of Youth and ICT (Information and communications technology) is keen for the youth and private sector to invest further in digital innovation.