From fields to markets: the role of digital platforms in West Africa's agricultural success

Results Highlights

• The Côte d’Ivoire e-Agriculture Project benefited over 400,000 individuals between 2018 and 2023 working in selected agricultural value chains by improving market access and information through development of a digital marketplace platform. 
• This project also contributed to creating more than 43,000 new mobile money accounts, establishing 187 vendors offering SIM cards and mobile money services, and purchasing over 53,000 SIM cards by beneficiaries.
• The Benin Digital Rural Transformation Project has benefited more than 103,000 individuals through development of digital platforms increasing access to information, facilitating access to farm machinery, and improving farm decision-making. 
• The Acceleration of Digital Transformation of Cameroon Project (PATNUC) has enrolled over 9,000 producers into an electronic voucher (e-voucher) system, with nearly 4,000 producers benefiting from fertilizer and seed subsidies since April 2024.

Challenge

While agriculture is a vital sector in West Africa, limited access to information and underdeveloped infrastructure pose challenges for producers across the region. These challenges hinder productivity and market access, particularly for smallholder farmers, who dominate the sector in the region.  In Côte d’Ivoire, 73 percent of the population did not have access to mobile broadband and remained offline in 2018. Moreover, Côte d’Ivoire’s urban-rural coverage gap was significant: most people living in rural areas were not connected to the internet and faced low access to information and services. Smallholder farmers living in rural areas faced challenges in connecting to markets and meeting market demands in terms of volume and quality due to the limited access to real time market information, resulting in inefficiencies in agricultural value chains. Similarly, farmers in Benin faced barriers such as inadequate access to markets due to poor infrastructure, and insufficient and unreliable information about seeds, tools, and crops. Access to financial services was limited, with 62 percent of the population lacking access to such services. In Cameroon, the agricultural sector is characterized by low productivity leading to inefficiencies and low yields due to limited use of mechanization, inputs, and irrigation, as well as high transactional costs and information asymmetries across the value chain. 

Approach

Promoting digital opportunities is one of the goals to help transform the Western and Central Africa (AFW) region’s economy and inclusive growth. The region identifies digital solutions as a promising way to support effective and inclusive service delivery and increased broadband connectivity to create more jobs and empower people. In particular, the AFW strategy underscores digital transformation as a key enabler for increasing agricultural productivity, improving market access, and enhancing resilience of the sector. 

1. The Côte d’Ivoire e-Agriculture project aimed to increase access to digital services for people in rural areas by expanding access to internet connectivity. The project worked with the Ministry of Communication, Digital Economy, and Post to provide least-cost subsidies competitively awarded to private operators in the rural areas that were identified to need coverage yet with low commercial profitability. The project leveraged the World Bank’s finance to mobilize private capital by awarding catalytic subsidies to the private sector. 
2. The Côte d’Ivoire e-Agriculture project also aimed to increase farmers’ access to markets through digital platforms. The Project worked with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and its National Rural Development Agency to develop and operationalize the “Agristore.ci” web/mobile platform to help farmers market agricultural products and match suppliers and buyers.
3. The Benin Digital Rural Transformation Project aims to leverage digital solutions to improve value-chain efficiency, financial inclusion, and access to markets. The project supported the development of an e-agriculture advisory platform, a digital platform for agricultural machinery and equipment management, and a farm management platform for producers in selected value chains, integrating geospatial data to monitor the progress of registered farms. These solutions helped improve farm-level decision making. 
4. The Acceleration of Digital Transformation of Cameroon Project aims to increase use of digital agricultural solutions through piloting an electronic voucher (e-voucher) system and developing data-driven farm decision support systems. The project has developed and piloted an e-voucher platform to facilitate access to farm inputs. This platform supported above 3,000 producers in 2024. The Project also organized the first innovative competition that helped to identify and award 10 digital solutions that will be scaled to address critical agricultural challenges in Cameroon.

Results: Year Launched – Year Closed

Across multiple projects in Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and Cameroon, over 733,000 individuals have directly benefited from digital infrastructure expansion, agricultural value chain enhancements, and digital advisory services. These initiatives have collectively increased internet connectivity, improved market access, and facilitated digital financial inclusion, particularly among rural communities and women.

Côte d’Ivoire (2018-2023)

1. The deployment of mobile broadband infrastructure through project financing provided internet access to over 221,000 people in rural areas, enhancing their access to information and essential services. This initiative led to the creation of more than 43,000 new mobile money accounts, the establishment of 187 vendors offering SIM cards and mobile money services, and the purchase of over 53,000 SIM cards by beneficiaries.
2. The project benefited over 400,000 individuals, 58.9 percent of whom were women, working in agricultural value chains. It improved market access and information by connecting beneficiaries to a digital marketplace platform, “Agristore.ci”, which was developed and launched through the project. By the project's end, this platform had over 160,000 visits and more than 36,000 agricultural sales listings, indicating high usage by beneficiaries.
3. Additionally, the project facilitated the creation and operation of an agriculture observatory within the National Agency for Rural Development. This observatory was vital for providing real-time agricultural advisory services to small-scale farmers in the project areas, thereby boosting productivity. It delivered digital agricultural advisory services and agro-meteorological advice through various channels, including SMS, mobile applications, web services, and a telephone call center. Over the project's duration, the observatory sent out over 11 million agricultural advisory messages, with 44 percent of these messages reaching women.

Benin (2020-2025; Project closure planned in June 2025)

The project has enrolled over 103,000 individuals, including nearly 31,000 women, into the digital platforms developed through World Bank financing, aimed at expanding access to information, facilitating access to farm machinery and improving farm decision-making.

Cameroon (2022-2027; Project closure planned in March 2027)

The project has enrolled as of December 2024 more than 9,000 producers into an e-voucher platform, enabling nearly 4,000 people to receive fertilizer and seed subsidies since April 2024. It is expected that about 16,000 producers will receive subsidies by December 2025.

Beneficiary Quotes

Data Highlights

World Bank Group Contribution

In Côte d’Ivoire, the e-Agriculture project was funded by an IDA credit of EUR52.2 million ($57.4 million), of which $8.5 million was dedicated for the interventions related to increasing access to services and agricultural information and markets. In Benin, about $10 million out of a $100 million IDA credit for Digital Rural Transformation Project supported the development of digital platforms aimed at increasing agricultural productivity. The Acceleration of Digital Transformation of Cameroon Project was funded by an IDA credit of $100 million, of which $30 million aims to facilitate data-driven digital solutions in agriculture.

Partnerships

Supporting digital agriculture solutions requires close partnerships and collaboration with government counterparts in charge of digital economy/ICT sector and agriculture and rural development.

• In Cote d’Ivoire, the main implementing partners (for the relevant interventions) were the Ministry of Communication, Digital Economy, and Post, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, National Rural Development Agency, and Office of Assistance for the Marketing of Food Products. 
• In Benin, World Bank worked with the Ministry of Digital Economy in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and the Federation of Unions of Agricultural Producers of Benin.
• In Cameroon, key implementing partners are the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 

Looking Ahead

Sustainability of digital agricultural solutions is key for ensuring long-term impact. through clear ownership of products by clients and partners. In Côte d’Ivoire, the sustainability of digital infrastructure and connectivity in rural areas is guaranteed through a contractual obligation enforced by the sector regulator. The operator, who owns the infrastructure, is required to provide adequate service delivery for at least 10 years after the project's closure, extending through 2033. The digital agriculture platform, Agristore, will continue to operate due to the high level of adoption and satisfaction among project beneficiaries. The digital infrastructure set up by the project is also being used by other agriculture-related projects. The Côte d'Ivoire Agri-Food Sector Development Project will scale up the use of the platform and increase the number of users and its geographical coverage, ensuring the platform's viability. 

For Benin and Cameroon, the projects are ongoing (expected to close in June 2025 and March 2027, respectively) and will support scaling-up the digital platforms to increase outreach to farmers in the remaining project life. In Cameroon, the project aims to leverage partnerships between promoters of innovative digital solutions in agriculture and producer organizations for broader sustainability of impact.