Africa innovates Magazine -AI4DEV - Flipbook - Page 33
J U M I A - E - C O M M E RC E P L AT FO R M
Ron Kawamara is the CEO of Jumia Uganda.
During the COVID-19, pandemic, he has
expanded the e-commerce platform’s reach,
to cater for some of the most vulnerable
communities, particularly market vendors –
who are largely women and youth. By doing
so, the company is also helping to sustain
the much needed supply chains.
COVID-19 has had devastating
effects on the private sector and
most especially on the informal
sector. Vendors could no longer have
access to consumers and vice versa
during the stay-at-home measures.
We therefore partnered with UNDP,
to adapt the already existing Jumia
Food platform and infrastructure to
enable small and medium enterprises
to connect with consumers to sustain
livelihoods during the period.
Our focus was on
connecting market vendors
to potential customers with
priority on women,
people with disabilities
and the youth.
W H AT H A S B E E N
T H E I M PA C T O F
YO U R S E RV I C E ?
Our focus was on connecting market
vendors to potential customers with
priority on women, people with disabilities and the youth. This also provided employment to people – directly and indirectly – from the technical
business operations of managing
the platform, chain of logistics like
transport, assembling products, packaging and marketing. We have also
had our business partners like hotels,
sellers and restaurants adopting this
alternative line of revenue.
W H AT A R E T H E
CHALLENGES OF
PRODUCING OR
D E P LOY I N G YO U R
S E RV I C E ?
Technology is the great equalizer
when it comes to e-commerce.
Internet is still expensive for many of
our customers and as a result, we lose
on those sales. And in the past we
have had challenges with connecting
to informal vendors. Trust was also
another barrier with our service but
now we see that as a result of this
pandemic, e-commerce is trusted.
W H AT H E L P W O U L D
YO U N E E D TO S C A L E
U P A N D I M P R OV E
YO U R S E RV I C E ?
We need government support with
regulation to protect the buyer and
the seller. Laws regarding data protection for the consumer are coming
and we hope government will ensure
that whoever goes to the internet
plays by the rules.
We wish to also include Business
2 Business (B2B) distributions, and
also support the entire value chain by
linking farmers to markets.
SHOWCASING AFRICAN INNOVATION 33
photo: Shutterstock.com
W H AT I N S P I R E D
YO U TO C R E AT E
YO U R S E RV I C E ?
