Finance and Mobile Money for Rural Development: The case of Smallholder Farmers in Haiti

Sammanfattning: Globally, 500 million smallholder farmers require finance to secure a more productive, efficient, sustainable, and inclusive food system. Thus far, traditional financial services have been unsuccessful in reaching these farmers. Yet, mobile money services are proposed as a potential tool for enabling smallholder farmers access to financial services. Nonetheless, this proposed impact of mobile money on smallholder farmer finance has, insofar, not been studied in the literature. Accordingly, the primary aim of this study is to contribute to the understanding of whether mobile money enables smallholder farmer finance in Haiti. Moreover, this study aims to identify the advantages and challenges of mobile money for enabling inclusive smallholder farmer finance. As a methodological approach, this study conducts a binary logistic regression which employs a Penalised Maximum Likelihood Estimation using data from the 2018 FinScope Haiti Consumer Survey. The results do not support the expectations of mobile money enabling smallholder farmer finance. Particularly, (remaining) barriers of formal financial access, financial knowledge, income, and attitudes towards financial services are found to challenge mobile money. These results suggest that mobile money alone is unlikely to enable smallholder farmer finance. Instead, it suggests that a wider approach targeting the found challenges is needed for inclusive smallholder farmer finance.