AGRICULTURE
Digital Advisory Support Services for Accelerated Rural Transformation Program (DAS)
Creating resilient food systems across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
Small farms account for 84% of total farms worldwide and produce 35% of the world’s food supply. Despite the significant role smallholder farmers play in feeding the world, these farmers face challenges in obtaining essential supplies (e.g., fertilizer and seeds) and accessing information on how to best grow and sell their crops profitably.
Additionally, smallholder farmers encounter weak market linkages, poor infrastructure (such as a lack of roads and harvesting facilities), financial constraints and limited credit access, and unpredictable weather conditions due to climate change. Barriers to accessing information and reaching financial markets are especially restrictive to smallholder farmers’ productivity. By increasing smallholder farmers’ access to and use of information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) tools, the chance of a fruitful harvest increases and, in turn, improves food security for everyone.
The DAS Program aimed to advance food security across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia by closing the gap in digital tools and information access for smallholder farmers. Running from March 2022 through March 2025, the program was funded through the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and implemented in partnership with Jengalab and TechChange.
Overall, the DAS Program provided IFAD-funded programs with recommendations on how to scale sustainable digital solutions and how to build capacity and strengthen institutions through cutting-edge digital topics, monitoring and evaluation frameworks, and development of appropriate national policies. By focusing on the end user, the program helped partners improve the ability of digital systems and tools to meet the needs of smallholder farmers.
Specifically, the DAS Program’s advisory work:
- Increased access to information and inclusive financial services for smallholder farmers and the partners with whom they work, and
- Advanced the use of information and communications technologies to allow for better targeting, monitoring, and impact measurement for agricultural development.
IMPACT
Tanzania
In Tanzania, DAS assisted with the development of the country’s first e-agriculture strategy – the Digital Agriculture Strategy (2025 – 2030) – by conducting a situational analysis and generating a draft zero for it. This enabled the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) to better leverage digital agriculture technologies and enhance data-driven decision-making in the country. DAS further supported capacity-building activities for the government and implementing partners on how to effectively integrate digital solutions for agriculture, informed by digitalization trends and practices from other countries.
Following the development of the e-agriculture strategy, IFAD, in collaboration with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), formed the Joint Programme on Data for Digital Agricultural Transformation, supporting the MoA to better leverage data and strengthen interoperability to transform the country’s agriculture sector and provide more efficient service delivery. Through the technical support provided by DAS and the subsequent Joint Programme, 10 innovative agri-tech projects are expected to scale up, with additional catalytic investment provided for 3 agri-tech projects. It is estimated that this will result in more than 500,000 smallholder farmers – including 300,000 women and 100,000 youth – gaining access to enhanced digital services.
Nigeria
In Nigeria, the DAS program conducted an assessment of the digital agriculture ecosystem. Serving as foundational research for various project activities – including online training on principles of digital development, interoperability, and in-person monitoring and evaluation (M&E) training – this assessment helped identify key digitalization challenges in the country, such as connectivity and affordability, and generated recommendations for strategic partnerships to address these challenges.
The assessment, which identified data gaps, prioritized interventions, and fostered collaboration with stakeholders, facilitated the development of an ICT4D strategy with the Nigerian government, laying a solid foundation for local ICT-enabled projects and providing a strong case for scaling digital innovations in IFAD-supported programs.
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