Purpose: This study aims to examine the comparative link between mobile money (MoMo) and entrepreneurship in East Africa. Apart from analysing the data to examine locational, gender and age heterogeneities in the MoMo–entrepreneurship nexus, the authors explore the potential roles of digital savings and access to digital credit in serving as transmission channels in the link between MoMo adoption and entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses nationally representative samples from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda which were extracted from the fifth wave of the InterMedia Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) Program. The authors employ a suite of quasi-experimental microeconometric techniques—standard instrumental variable estimation, Lewbel two-stage least squares (2SLS) and propensity score matching.Findings: Overall, the authors’ preferred endogeneity-corrected result suggests that adopters of MoMo are 24.4 percentage points more likely to engage in entrepreneurship. This result is robust to alternative ways of conceptualising MoMo adoption and different methods used in resolving endogeneity. The association between MoMo and entrepreneurship is stronger in Kenya compared to Uganda and not significant in Tanzania. The significant positive association between MoMo and entrepreneurship is observed among women and rural residents and not for their male and urban-located counterparts. MoMo significantly enhances entrepreneurship among the youth and adults but not the elderly. Digital savings and access to digital credit serve as important channels through which FinTech adoption influences entrepreneurship.Practical implications: The entrepreneurship-enhancing effect of MoMo adoption can be extended to discuss the possibility of employing MoMo as a policy tool to contribute to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 8 which seeks to ensure full and productive employment and decent work for all. Incomes that accrue from entrepreneurial activities can also increase households' purchasing power to decrease poverty (SDG 1), reduce food insecurity (SDG 2) and provide resources needed to purchase clean and modern cooking and lighting fuels (SGD 7).Social implications: The growing rate of unemployment and vulnerable employment in Africa has been an issue of concern to policy makers. These problems have been caused by the inability of policy makers to create adequate jobs. The study’s findings show that policies geared towards enhancing the diffusion of MoMo can augment efforts being made by governments to decrease the unemployment rate in Africa through increased entrepreneurship. The employment effect of MoMo can also be realised through the emergence of digital entrepreneurship which has been identified as having the potential to transform African economies to knowledge-based economies for sustainable development.Originality/value: This study contributes to the MoMo literature by deviating from the focus of existing studies which have emphasised more on the intermediate outcome (performance) and less on the immediate (i.e. entrepreneurship or small business venturing). This helps to highlight the entrepreneurship effect of MoMo which has evolved from a simple peer-to-peer payment system to a complex one that provides savings, credit, insurance and other products.

The rapid growth of mobile phones in Ghana has opened up the possibility of delivering timely and useful weather and market information to farmers at costs lower than traditional agricultural extension services. In this paper, we assess the usefulness, constraints, and factors likely to influence farmers’ decisions to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information. We rely on primary data from 310 farmers in the Upper West Region, an understudied part of Ghana. We subject the data to three types of analysis. First, we model farmers’ decision to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information by estimating a binary logit model. Second, we use descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing to analyse the level of usefulness of mobile phone-based weather and market information. We disaggregate the analysis by sex, income status, and age group. Finally, we use qualitative analysis to summarize the constraints associated with the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information. We find that contact with agricultural extension agents and farmer-to-farmer extension services significantly influences farmers’ decision to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information. Regardless of sex, income status, and age group, farmers generally rate mobile phone-based weather and market information as very useful. We identify inexact information, complex text messages, information that are too costly to implement, and poor infrastructure as the constraints to the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information. In order to improve the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information, disseminators of mobile phone-based information such as Esoko should constantly update and provide client-specific information. Improvements in mobile phone networks and related services will enhance the utilization of mobile phone-based weather and market information.

Purpose: Production credit is essential for enhancing the technical efficiency (TE) and the welfare of smallholder farmers in Africa. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of credit on smallholders’ TE using cross-sectional data from 223 maize-producing households in Northern Ghana. Design/methodology/approach: Due to the exogenous assignment of credit and assumption of homogeneity in farm technologies, the propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was used to compare the average difference in TE between farmers that had received credit and those that had not. Findings: The results revealed that production credit impacts positively on smallholder farmers’ TE. Access to production credit is significantly influenced by access to markets and extension services, distance to market, asset index and land fragmentation. The provision of credit enhances the timely purchase and efficient allocation of farming inputs to produce the maximum possible output. Per capita income and land fragmentation also play important roles in reducing smallholders’ TE. Practical implications: To increase efficiency gains, credit programs for agricultural interventions should target resource-poor smallholder farmers. The efficiency gains can be sustained through stronger partnerships with financial institutions. Policy interventions aimed at increasing smallholder farmers’ access to production credit (e.g. through the creation of a conducive investment environment that lowers the lending rate and collateral requirements) must be vigorously pursued. Originality/value: To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is one of the only recent studies to examine the impact of credit on the TE of farming households by applying the translog stochastic frontier production function and the PSM approaches.

Agricultural training programs remain one of the primary mechanisms for disseminating modern and climate-smart technologies with the aim to improve the welfare outcomes of smallholder farmers. With persistent low agricultural productivity in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), the content, effectiveness, and mode of delivery of training programs remain a debate. In this paper, we examine the adoption, productivity, and income effects of participating in a novel comprehensive agricultural training program (CATP) involving cowpea farmers in northern Ghana by using the endogenous switching regression (ESR) model. The CATP requires farmers to complete a set of modules on good agronomic practices to gain informal certification. The results indicate that participating in the CATP increases the adoption of climate-smart cowpea varieties, productivity, and cowpea income by 75, 15, and 24% points, respectively, compared to their mean levels. These positive welfare effects of participating in the CATPs confirm the need to increase capacity-enhancing activities in agricultural development projects, and design mechanisms to eliminate barriers to participation among rural farm households.