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With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

David Spielman

David Spielman is the director of IFPRI’s Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit and has been with the institute since 2004. His research agenda covers a range of topics including agriculture and rural development policy; agricultural science, technology, and innovation; plant genetic resources and seed systems; agricultural extension and advisory services; and community-driven rural development.

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experts

Development Strategies and Governance

Fatma Abdelaziz

Senior Research Associate

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Bio

Fatma M. Abdelaziz is a Senior Research Associate in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit. She currently leads a USAID–funded research project on cluster-based development in Egypt. She also manages the IFPRI Egypt Seminar Series which features research-based policy dialogues that aim to identify and provide evidence-based policy solutions in Egypt. Prior to her work at IFPRI, she worked as consultant with the UNDP and PwC. Fatma’s research interests include public policy and development economics, with a special focus on cluster-based development. Fatma holds an MSc in Public Policy and Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in Economics from the American University in Cairo.

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers: Evidence from a randomized intervention in Egypt

2025Abdelaziz, Fatma; Abay, Kibrom A.
Details

Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers: Evidence from a randomized intervention in Egypt

Despite growing enthusiasm about the potential of digital innovations to transform agrifood systems, adoption among smallholder farmers in Africa remains low and heterogeneous. While the proliferation of digital tools targeting smallholder farmers is encouraging, the vast majority remain at pilot stages, facing important demand and supply-side barriers to adoption. This paper evaluates alternative digital literacy interventions designed to address these demand-side barriers. Following a Training of Trainers (TOT) model, we designed and implemented a randomized control trial to test three variants of digital literacy training: standard classroom-based digital literacy training (T1), digital training complemented (preceded) by a video-based play (T2), digital training complemented (preceded) by a live community play (T3), and a control group (C). We find that all variants of digital training significantly increased the uptake and utilization of digital tools by smallholder farmers. Specifically, the standard digital training alone increased uptake by 20 percentage points and utilization by 26 percentage points. The interventions also significantly enhanced farmer trust in digital tools by 8–13 percentage points. Surprisingly, for some outcomes, the digital literacy training alone outperformed the combined approaches that incorporated edutainment nudges. We explore possible explanations, including group size effects and social influence dynamics during the plays. We also document heterogeneity in the impact of these interventions across farmers’ gender and age. Our findings offer insights for designing cost effective and scalable interventions to build digital capabilities and trust among smallholder farmers.

Year published

2025

Authors

Abdelaziz, Fatma; Abay, Kibrom A.

Citation

Abdelaziz, Fatma; and Abay, Kibrom A. 2025. Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers: Evidence from a randomized intervention in Egypt. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2359. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/176520

Country/Region

Egypt

Keywords

Africa; Northern Africa; Digital Literacy; Training; Digital Agriculture; Smallholders; Technology Adoption

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility to Resilience in Central and West Asia and North Africa

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers

2024Abdelaziz, Fatma; Abay, Kibrom A.
Details

Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers

Digital innovations hold significant potential to address multiple forms of market failures. However, their adoption remains low and heterogenous across Africa. Smallholder farmers face significant barriers in accessing essential information, limiting their ability to seize market opportunities and enhance profitability. While numerous digital tools have been developed for farmers in the region, most are still in pilot phases. The landscape of digital agricultural innovations in Egypt, the focus of this study, presents a similar outlook, whereby the Egyptian market has an array of innovative digital study, presents a similar outlook, whereby the Egyptian market has an array of innovative digital agricultural tools that offer different services to farmers (including digital advisory agricultural and market services). Several demand and supply-side factors contribute to the low adoption of these digital innovations and their disparities among smallholder farmers in Africa and Egypt. On the supply side, the most important challenges include inadequate public and private investment in complementary infra-structure, unsustainable business models, and a misalignment in the pace of innovation. The most important demand-side challenges include lack of digital literacy, insufficient context-specific needs assessments, digital divide, and accessibility, usability, and user trust. User confidence and trust in digital tools is another important but understudied topic.. However, we lack empirically grounded evidence on alternative supply and demand-side interventions to enhance the adoption and scaling of digital innovations in various contexts, including Egypt.

Year published

2024

Authors

Abdelaziz, Fatma; Abay, Kibrom A.

Citation

Abdelaziz, Fatma; and Abay, Kibrom A. 2024. Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers. Project Note September 2024. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152495

Country/Region

Egypt

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Northern Africa; Agricultural Technology; Digital Agriculture; Digital Innovation; Smallholders

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility to Resilience in Central and West Asia and North Africa

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Digital tools for smallholders in Egypt: The launch of a new price monitoring tool – Mahsoly

2024Abdelaziz, Fatma; Tarek, Abdallah
Details

Digital tools for smallholders in Egypt: The launch of a new price monitoring tool – Mahsoly

The rapid adoption of mobile phones in agricultural and production systems provides an avenue to unlock the potential of digital innovations to transform smallholder agriculture in low- and middle-income countries. Previous research highlights how the adoption of digital tools can enhance farmers’ profits and marketing outcomes by improving market efficiency through better supply and demand matching. Other research similarly emphasizes how digital innovations can facilitate agricultural transformation and transform the functioning of markets by addressing multiple forms of institutional and market failures. However, despite these advantages and the availability of numerous digital tools for agriculture, their adoption remains low and uneven across Africa, where agricultural markets are still underdeveloped. Smallholder farmers in developing countries, including Egypt, face challenges in accessing essential information, which limits their ability to leverage market opportunities and maximize profitability. Given the limited understanding of the primary challenges hindering Egyptian farmers’ adoption of digital technologies and the strategies needed to enhance their access to these innovations, this paper aims to utilize an extensive survey of smallholder farmers in Egypt to: (i) examine the constraints to adoption of digital agricultural tools in Egypt; and (ii) assess the impact of farmer training programs on the awareness and adoption of digital tools, using the Mahsoly mobile application and its new price monitoring tool as a case study.

Year published

2024

Authors

Abdelaziz, Fatma; Tarek, Abdallah

Citation

Abdelaziz, Fatma; and Tarek, Abdallah. 2024. Digital tools for smallholders in Egypt: The launch of a new price monitoring tool – Mahsoly. MENA Working Paper 43. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152510

Country/Region

Egypt

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Northern Africa; Digital Innovation; Farming Systems; Mobile Phones; Smallholders

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Blogs

Egypt conference: Opportunities and challenges of cluster-based development
Event Post
 | 
February 28, 2019

Egypt conference: Opportunities and challenges of cluster-based development

By Hoda El Enbaby and Fatma Abdelaziz

IFPRI researchers on what the evidence shows about sparking local economic development in China and Egypt.

Egypt and other Arab countries need sound policies to jump-start development efforts
Issue Post
 | 
June 24, 2016

Egypt and other Arab countries need sound policies to jump-start development efforts

By Katarlah Taylor, Fatma Abdelaziz, and Jose Luis Figueroa

Participants at a recent Cairo seminar held to mark the Egypt launch of IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) grappled with the Arab region’s profound development problems. The upheavals of the Arab Spring halted progress in meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said Clemens Breisinger, director of IFPRI’s Egypt Strategy Support Program. “It […]

Events

The potential of digital tools to support farmers in Egypt: Lessons learned and way forward
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

November 9, 2021, 8:00 – 10:30 am

The potential of digital tools to support farmers in Egypt: Lessons learned and way forward

Virtual Event: NOV 9, 2021 – 08:00 AM to 10:30 AM EST. This technical workshop aims to mobilize various actors' efforts as well support the MALR consolidate and mainstream existing digital services in Egypt. 

COVID-19 lessons for rebuilding resilient value chains and agri-food system
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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March 2, 2021, 9:00 – 10:30 am

COVID-19 lessons for rebuilding resilient value chains and agri-food system

The COVID-19 pandemic is an important reminder and rationale for investing in resilient value chains and agri-food systems. The pandemic revealed important vulnerabilities in national and global food systems. Although the pandemic continues to ravish national economies, these impacts vary across sectors and value chains. Most sectors and value chains are being (negatively) affected by […]

Launch of IFPRI’s 2019 Global Food Policy Report: Revitalizing Rural Areas in Lebanon & Soft Launch of WBG’s DigitalAG4MENA
Series/Special Event

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June 18, 2019, 11:00 – 2:00 pm

Launch of IFPRI’s 2019 Global Food Policy Report: Revitalizing Rural Areas in Lebanon & Soft Launch of WBG’s DigitalAG4MENA

The Launch of IFPRI’s 2019 Global Food Policy Report Welcoming Remarks Keynote Presentations Global Food Policy – Key Findings of the GFPR 2019 Regional Chapter – Cluster-Based Industrialization to Revitalize MENA Rural Areas Panel Discussion and Q&A Session Rural Revitalization: The Last Rabbit out of the Development Hat Can we Leap-Frog into Digitization? Promoting Agricultural […]

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News

February 24, 2016 | Press Release

IFPRI, a Global Leader in Food and Agriculture Research, Opens Program Office in Cairo

IFPRI, a Global Leader in Food and Agriculture Research, Opens Program Office in Cairo The Cairo hub will produce scientific evidence and build national capacity to raise incomes of the rural poor and improve food and nutrition security in Egypt Office to serve as a resource for journalists February 24, 2016, Cairo, Egypt—The International Food […]

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