The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the FHI360 Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project has signed an agreement with the WorldFish Center and Dnet to utilise mobile money payments within their agriculture and health programmes in Bangladesh.
These one-year grants would enable NGO development partners currently implementing USAID programmes to move away from cash payments and use mobile technology to exchange money, said a press release.
As a result, project staff, vendors, and other individuals such as community health workers and fish farmers would be able to deliver and receive aid funds through electronic transactions to increase efficiency within their programmes. As part of this collaboration, mSTAR offers targeted grants to help USAID development partners adopt and accelerate the use of mobile money and electronic payments.
In addition, the grants help organisations overcome initial cost barriers that may exist with shifting to electronic payments. Introducing these digital payment transaction platforms can help pave the way for the emergence of new business models that make basic services more accessible to the general public.
The WorldFish Center will incorporate mobile money technology to help them disburse allowances to around 13,000 farmers participating in training workshops under the USAID Feed the Future initiative in the Khulna region.
Dnet will incorporate electronic payments under the USAID Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action mobile phone health messaging programme to reimburse registration fees, travel and training expenses of more than 1,000 of their “Aponjon” community health workers and field staff in 25 districts, and to pay local vendors.
Over the course of the grant, WorldFish and Dnet will compare the difference between mobile and cash payments in terms of cost, efficiency and convenience.
