Antananarivo, MadagascarRija Ravelomanana’s two dreams are to give poor people access to information, and to create a system where buyers and sellers have a better relationship. He’ll tell you eloquently—and make you believe through his assurance and stories in the field--that these are critical factors for success, and the most important things you can strive for when implementing any MIS. In his years working in agriculture in Madagascar, he’s seen so many incidents of buyers and sellers not being able to find each other—the proper links just don’t exist. Groundnut sellers complain to him of no market, and buyers complain that they can’t find the groundnuts. So what needs to happen is to have an accessible place where all of this information can be stored. And when producers have access to price information, they can take back some of the power that the traders always hold. And one last dream from Riva—and we’ll let him have three--is every player being able to control the commodity chain and look at historic data, which will then help everybody along that chain--to know the fluctuation of prices, the best time to sell the product, the best time to start producing, and where the best places are to grow. This way buyers can know where the cheapest product are will go there, which will then increase the demand and increase the prices. These are the rules of the market. Rija believes that we evolve the more we learn about MIS, and that no one can expect a miracle. But we’ve come a long way already, and he thinks we're all making progress together.
