Africa House and our partner organization, CTED, are currently working with Esoko in Ghana to design and implement a cluster RCT (randomized control trial) to evaluate the effectiveness of SMS-based market information systems.
Recently, there has been a rise of Market Information Systems (MIS) in developing regions that harness new information technologies to get information to more farmers faster. The impact of those systems on market outcomes have not been studied very widely. This project designs and implements a cluster randomized control trial in Ghana to evaluate the impact of Esoko’s MIS on farm-gate prices and livelihoods (household assets, children in school, etc.), farmer marketing behavior (search behavior, bargaining power, market contracts, etc.) as well as the trust of other market players, especially traders. Furthermore, we will gather data to find out how information spillovers and technology adoption occur among rural farmers in Africa.