Despite significant strides in reducing poverty during recent decades, there are still about 1.2 billion extremely poor people in the world.

Over the past three years, payment strategies for emerging markets have been revolutionized by the advent of a simple cell-phone-based payment service in Kenya called M-PESA (“M” for “mobile” and “pesa” for “money”).

Before the late 1970s, rural dwellers in Ghana had almost no access to institutional credit for farm and nonfarm activities, and in many rural communities, secure, safe, and convenient savings and payment facilities hardly existed.

The author describes a successful case study as follows: "Dairy production in Kenya has grown at 2.8 percent per year over the past two decades, resulting in per capita production levels double those found anywhere else on the continent.

During the first half of the 20th century, African farmers transformed maize from a minor imported foodcrop into the continent's principal staple food.

The authors describe the case study as follows: "Kenyan horticultural exports have grown at over 6 percent per year for the past 30 years.

One of the pillars of rural development in francophone Africa, the cotton sector serves as a principal motor of economic development, generating benefits to farmers, rural communities, private traders, cotton companies, and national governments...