Smart Villages Mobile Phone Based Platform

Smart Village is a mobile platform which uses a Public-Private-Community Partnership model to coordinate and bring all the value chain actors in the smallholder and family farming level on one platform thus closing the skills, information, market, finance and energy gaps towards achievement of sustainable agricultural development.

Globally, 805 million people experience chronic hunger and poverty, of which 75% live in rural areas and are dependent on climate-sensitive smallholder agriculture. Rural women and girls experience this similar reality as agriculture is their predominant economic activity. 80% of Africa agriculture production is from women. Their major problem is a highly disintegrated agricultural value chain system, which creates skills, information, markets, finance and energy gaps within their operations. This will incapacitate them, resulting in proliferation of food and income insecurity as well as expose them to economic and natural shocks. 

According to World Bank there are now 2.5 billion smartphones in the world, for 5.5 billion population of age 14 years and older this present the potential ICTs has in developing the world. Rising literacy rates in developing countries and the eagerness and capacity that women farmers have in developing themselves and their communities as evidenced by high success rate of women centered projects all over the world is a strong motivation. ICTS have the potential to avail all the services a farmers can need at the touch of a button thereby closing all the gaps in value chain system.

Smart Villages is targeting at helping women and girls smallholder and family farmers to access all the services and goods they need to operate their farming ventures at ease. Our solution will close the value chain gaps towards the sustainable development of smallholder and family farming through empowering women and girls with an aim to; eradicate poverty, increase food availability and income security as well as enhance climate change resilience. It will be easy for all value chain actors to distribute various services like information, skills, finance, markets, energy, climate services and so on.

One result-oriented Public-Private-Community Partnership. - Establish a Public-Private-Community Partnership, to bring the value chain actors on one platform to collaborate ideas on how best to design and implement the project.

Number of women farmers using the application - Launch and pilot test our platform for 9 months with 500 women farmers in Mazowe District of Zimbabwe.

5000 women farmers able to use and benefit from the platform to do their agriculture sustainably and at ease. - Scale up the project to 5000 women farmers covering Mazowe District, Guruve District and Muzarabani District of Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe there is a similar mobile application launched in 2015 by Welthungerhilfe, a global development organization called 'Kurima Mari', (´farming for money'). However, the difference between Smart Villages and Kurima Mari is that Smart Villages is more comprehensive on the services it offers, makes great use of the local languages to enhance ease in information transmission to the farmers also, its mode of operation and implementation is different as we will implement it on a Public-Private-Community Partnership model enhancing an integration between the sectors.  Also our solution is people or community centered.

Smart Villages platform is a coalition all value actors starting from the women farmers up to the final consumer. The solution is centered on the views, input and collaboration of everyone to work together.  It is community centered and developed to work in specific communities according to the needs and aspirations of those communities. Our solution is mainly focused on the ability of all the value chain players to come to get and coordinate resources, initiatives and efforts on one platform. The success of the initiative is dependent on having a vibrant, action and results oriented Public-Private- Community Partnership.  

The main channel to market and distribute our solution is the Public-Private-Community Partnership (PPCP). The PPCP is a representation of all the value chain actors within that specific community and is the best way to have the platform accessed by all the actors. Farmers associations will help to market and distribute the application to all their members, so does the representatives of all the value chain actors. The mobile phone application will be available on google play store for download in adding to being distributed by the PPCP.

Smart Villages is designed and operated under Public-Private-Community Partnership which facilitates resources mobilisation. CASL Trust, has other functional projects that are assisting Smart Villages with resources. The project will be a social business that incorporates business models for cost recovery and revenue streams to sustain operations. Application users will be paying monthly subscriptions of which will be used for the expansion and maintenance. The feature on the application 'Smart Academy' offers online courses on specific agricultural-related courses. Our subscribers who would like to acquire accredited certificates in conjunction with our Academic Institutions partners will pay a small fee. The Smart Information option on the mobile application offers businesses and partners paid advertising space from which revenue can be generated. In addition, a 3% commission will be charged for produce marketing. 

1. Financing:

We need financing to conduct all our planned activities and to enhance the startup. The venture needs funding for the pilot testing, establishment and scaling up of the platform.

2. Mentorship: 

Since this is a new venture to us, we shall need mentors and guides to help us in the daily evaluation and running of the project as well as helping us improve the relations the venture.

3. Networking:

We also need networks to share our ideas and make sustainable collaborations and partnerships

http://263chat.com/local-ngo-empower-rural-women-youths/

https://www.facebook.com/centreforagro/photos/a.1769186563310808.1073741827.1391910261038442/2159774604252000/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/resolutionproject/photos/rpp.113781201972136/1796138587069714/?type=3

 We are motivated to become a Solver as this will go a long way to empowering our communities with the most needed skills to plan better and implement our community development initiatives. We would like to network with visionary leaders who are aiming at making the world a better place and improving humanity. We will use this opportunity to learn. We are eager to acquire servant and behavioral leadership, project planning and other life skills for community development. We also aim to search for funds necessary to implement our project.

We are a member of Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU), Mvurwi Local Environmental Action Plan Committee and the Mvurwi Water Sanitation and Hygiene Steering committee. Since 2014, we have been implemented two projects that was funded by Global Environmental Facility Small Grant Programme- UNDP Zimbabwe (GEFSGP-UNDP) and Mvurwi Town Council. 

1. Welthungerhilfe, with their 'Kurima Mari' application