techfortrade has teamed up with the Zambian operation of UK charity, International Development Enterprises (IDE), to launch a six month pilot trading project in Zambia. The pilot builds on an existing mobile enabled market linkages system called LimaLinks, funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which IDE are deploying in 9 Zambian markets.
Work on this service had identified an innovative opportunity to extend these mobile-based market linkages across the DRC border in order to benefit both Zambian farmers through increased demand and DRC consumers through increased competition.
The pilot for this cross border trade extension service is already under way and the first transactions have been completed. If successful, this pilot will be expanded to other border points later in 2013.