Goals

The climate is one of the major concerns of this generation. Realising this, Justdiggit trains people in areas of drought to dig half-moon circles in which rainwater is collected. This process of ‘greening’ ensures that the land will be fertile again within a year, something that is vitally important for the local population and which, on a larger scale, the whole world can benefit from.

Justdiggit asked Dept how technology could help them achieve their goals. As Deptsters are committed to making a change, the agency is a breeding ground for social and sustainable initiatives. So within Dept, a team was put together to give a helping hand.

Project description

The climate is one of the major concerns of this generation. Realising this, Justdiggit trains people in areas of drought to dig half-moon circles in which rainwater is collected. This process of ‘greening’ ensures that the land will be fertile again within a year, something that is vitally important for the local population and which, on a larger scale, the whole world can benefit from.

Justdiggit asked Dept how technology could help them achieve their goals. As Deptsters are committed to making a change, the agency is a breeding ground for social and sustainable initiatives. So within Dept, a team was put together to give a helping hand.

Strategy

In a strategy and design print, the team designed a platform where farmers who want to dig holes in a qualifying area are linked to people who want to sponsor them. Research showed that many of the farmers in African villages are well connected. They completely skipped landlines and ADSL and take care of a lot of business mobile. For example, over 40% of the population of Tanzania does their banking via M-Pesa, which amounts to 95 million mobile money transactions per month.

The marketplace/app works as follows:

People in the West can easily donate money through Ideal.
In the background, a system automatically connects the donations to all the farmers who are allowed to dig in a qualifying area.
Once a hole has been dug, it is captured with a photograph. This photo is approved by a fundi, who acts as a kind of overseer, and then the transaction is made.
The donor receives the photo and the transaction overview. Digging a hole costs €3,64, of which €2,02 goes to the farmer (55%). The rest of the money goes to the purchase of seeds (27%) , the salary of the fundi (5%), transaction costs (5%) and the protection of project areas against overgrazing by cattle (8%). It is a fair system and a perfect example of cutting out the middleman, where Justdiggit is purely the facilitator.

Results

The beta version currently covers 80 hectares and that size will significantly increase in 2019. For example, in Kenia alone, the bunds technique already turned 1600 hectares green. With the app, this will expand even further in both Kenia and Tanzania. Moreover, apart from the ‘bunds technique’, Justdiggit uses Kiskihai (Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration) to turn Dodoma, an area half the size of The Netherlands, green.

Justdiggit - Justdiggit

CREDITS

Local partners

Gold partners